


The Ties That Bind

by JacksWild



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apprentice - Freeform, Artist Harry Potter, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Intelligent Harry Potter, Intelligent Severus Snape, M/M, Magical Theory, Mastery, Potions, Powerful Harry, Powerful Snape, Professor - Freeform, Slow Burn, Strong Harry, Strong Snape, Training, Traveling, idk more tags to come later I guess, mental health, more like acquaintances to friends to more than friends but less than lovers to lovers, painful childhood trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:40:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15584124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacksWild/pseuds/JacksWild
Summary: Harry has been seeking his Defense Mastery for the last several years and needs a Master to apprentice under for a year before he can earn the title completely. How will this work out and is there going to be a long and winding road to gain or loss?





	1. The Beginning After the End

**Author's Note:**

> This story is currently sitting at nearly 40k words in my computer and I think it has another 20k to go before it will be completed. I am not sure, but I really want to finish it before classes start up again. So I have only a couple of weeks. Keep me grounded to finish this out, because I think it's really good and I know that you all will like it. As always, I do not own any part of HP, and I forever thank JKR for gifting us these characters to play with.

Harry settled into his studio, a small flat on the edge of the city, where if you leaned out of the bedroom window and turned your head and squinted you could see the city skyline through the overgrown tree in the shared yard. He felt safe, the flat was small, only 500 square feet but was perfect for him… he was used to small spaces, and had always felt a bit unsteady when the rooms were large and the space felt overwhelming instead of comforting. 

He hung art from every available place, the walls covered in his own pieces, and those of other artists, local and abroad, famous and relatively unknown. His kitchen always smelt of freshly baked bread and herbs, his bathroom held continuous remnants of herbal remedies and the smell of masculine tea tree and cedar. 

The curtains were always open and when the wind and air were crisp, the windows as well, the flow between the front of the flat and the back, allowing for a clean breeze to blow through the mustier heaviness that set in when the hot months were afoot. 

He spent his time studying, working and working out. Learning early on, that keeping his mind and body active was the only effective way of keeping the ghosts at bay, of keeping the gnawing anxiety quiet, of keeping the heavy regrets just a little off his shoulders. He was coming up on the end of his Defense Mastery and was beginning to admit that it would be time to enter back into the Wizarding World. 

The Mastery required a final year of apprenticeship, and he was not willing to use his name to obtain favor. His grades though good, showed where he struggled, and his talents, though there, were also equaled out with his inability to keep calm for long enough to create anything new. A Mastery required one creation or assistance with a creation, to obtain. It was a failing he was all too aware of. 

He penned a letter to the only person that he knew would be able to help him locate a suitable Master to train under, and sent Ares off in search of the Dowager. Letting the air escape his lungs with forced meditation techniques, he turned and set out his painting tools, he needed to get out of his mind for a bit. 

**~~**

Severus was a hard man to contend with when he was in a good mood, and even more difficult all the rest of the time. The war had left him with scars that were both visible and hidden, but the weight of paranoia that he’d carried with him for more than 30 years was a weight he had lost when he was found innocent and his story had been released when the ashes had blown away and fires had died down. The Order of Merlin – First Class and Second Class, always prominently displayed on his mantel, not for the people that rarely visited, but for himself – it never hurt to remind himself that he was worth more than the constant conflagration that filled his mind with thoughts of pain and darkness. 

His childhood home had been a place of pain during the first 20 years of his life, a place of hiding the next 20, and after the war had been a weight he’d shed with ease when the city of Cokeworth offered to purchase it to build a manufacturing plant for muggles. He’d taken the nice chunk of muggle money and had purchased a home in Oxford, and hadn’t looked back on that blight in a long time. 

His home, a tidy three story, narrow brown brick, was older and perfect for him. Every wall that was available was lined with sturdy thick bookshelves, which were leaden with heavy tomes, books, potions, artifacts, pictures, and the occasional odd trinket. His home was exactly what he’d always wanted and nothing he didn’t. The first floor was a small kitchen with black and white tile and a large window looking out on his small garden, and a larger open den that he’d split with magic into a dining room and office space. The fire place against the farthest wall was large and gave off an abundance of heat when his bones were cold. 

The second floor was a lab, brilliantly laid out with nary a space wasted. Originally two rooms, he had taken out the wall in the middle, built a small bathroom into the side, and created a wall of shelves and long door closets that held or hid his potions ingredients in appropriate measure. The front wall was nearly all windows and the back was built with ventilation flats that could be opened either up or down depending on the time of year and the weather outside. The floor was dark oak, and charms were built, layer on layer, for cushioning (hours on ones feet often found pain in the soles of ones feet), and protection after protection spell. 

The third floor was his private oasis. And an oasis, no matter how trite the word was, it had become. Plush dark grey carpet, a king size four poster bed in the middle of the far wall, a dark green accent wall complimenting the lighter grey walls remaining. He had two sturdy shelves on either side of the bedroom door, with small accoutrement littering their respective place, the furniture white cedar and the ensuite built of white marble and dark black tile. The shower on one side, and claw foot bath on the other, with a small room for the facilities built into the back. The gold gilt mirror with magic inlaid was the one small nod to his new life. 

His life was one of peace and serenity. He’d built up a well-to-do business selling potions and treating special magical ailments. He didn’t see people often, unless he chose to, and he kept to himself. Occasionally, he would be asked to come up and guest lecture at the Oxford magical potions class, and also Hogwarts, and would do so willingly, if only to see the next generation and find out if there were any promising potioneers in the next batch. 

Life, though quiet and alone, was good, and he didn’t forget every day, how this had never been a dream, but now was a life he lived with relish. 

**~~**

Minerva retrieved Harry’s letter and penned back that she would look into a couple of Masters for him, and advise him when she’d had any promising options. She’d penned a missive to Severus and asked to move their normally scheduled tea up a week and leaned back in her tall wingback chair. After nearly a decade, it appeared her two favorite boys may finally following the ties that bind to one another. She sipped her tea and wrote to Poppy and Pomona. She had some small plans to make, as it had taken this long for the strings of fate to force a move, she wasn’t going to allow the tenuous possibilities fade if strong emotions overweighed possible optimism. 

**~~**

The pub was loud and the friends were plentiful. Harry having passed his last test was only an apprenticeship away from his Mastery and everyone willing to celebrate for any reason, found this to be as good as any reason to do so. He smiled and found he meant it, and sipped his ale as his friends pursued games of question and chance. The warded zone around their area of the pub allowing them, all survivors of far more than war time crimes, having been hounded by press in each their own right off and on for years, their greedy need of privacy. 

“Oy, Harry! You’re up, truth or dare!” Seamus threw up his ale in a mix of salute and attention grabbing. 

Harry smiled and leaned back, avoiding the slightly concerned glare of Hermione and the nudging of Ron. Both wanting him to do something completely different, for their own reasons. 

“I believe this will be the final one of the night lads, and I’ll make it truth.” He said, downing the last of his ale and tapping the glass on the table, it disappearing with a pop to the kitchens. 

“Harry! You know Seamus doesn’t play by the rules!!” Hermione wailed, and sat back. He ignored her, it really wouldn’t have mattered if it had been a truth or dare, Seamus would have found a way to embarrass him regardless. 

“Alright, Hare! What was the Professor you found most attractive at Hogwarts, during our tenure there, aye?” He said, splitting a gut laughing, nearly falling back on Dean while he waited for Harry’s reveal. The wizarding variation on the common pub game, put a spell over the players causing the truth to be the only thing said or risk something happening to their skin, hair, etc. 

He leaned forward and thought on it, his mouth quirking on the side, as he contemplated if it was worth the risk to keep the truth a secret. As it was, Ron and Hermione knew the answer, and they were both looking at him with the same level of curiosity and humor. 

He threw some galleons on the table in payment for his part of the tab, and leaned in so that they all could hear him a smirk on his lips and a charming pink to his cheeks, “I would have to say, of all the Professors at Hogwarts, the most attractive and the one I spirited a crush on for neigh on more years than I would care to admit, was… Severus Snape.” He leaned back and laughed as a mixed bag of emotions flittered across the group. He’d not been very vocal about his preferences, and though he had been with Ginny for a couple years, they’d broken up nearly as long ago as they’d been together. He’d had his share of men in his love life as he’d had women, and lately he’d also had his share of peace and solitude. “That’s it for me then, have a good one! ‘Mione, Ron – I will see you both tomorrow.” He nodded, winked at Seamus and walked himself through the ward and towards the door. A small spring in his step and a smile on his lips. 

He walked home, opting to avoid the possibility of splinching himself and using the air to cleanse his heavy head. His flat welcomed him like a lover after a long day, comforting and embracing him in its own personal way. He undressed as he moved through to his bathroom, no bothering to worry about the clothing that trailed after him he would do to clean in the morning before he went about his normal Sunday errands. 

A soft tapping at the window, caused him to move over to the Juliet balcony and let in a beautiful tawny owl with a letter attached to its leg. He pet it behind it’s ears and took a bit of biscuit out of his pocket and watched as it greedily took the offering and took to the darkened blue night time skies.

He fell back on his bed and opened the letter, noticing immediately that it was from Minerva. 

“Mr. Potter, I have reached out to several contacts, and have obtained a promising possibility for you. One of the foremost Masters in DADA happens to live not too far from you, in Oxford and is willing to meet with you regarding your application for apprenticeship. I have not informed them of who you are, but did provide them all your grades and previous essays. I have had a couple of brief conversations with them, and they are most willing to meet with you.   
Please be advised that they are a tasking Master, but you should stand to be trained under the best. They will not be easily pleased. I have provided you a portkey that will be available for Sunday morn at 0900.   
Not that I feel the need to remind you of customs, but it is customary to bring something as an offering to show your honorable intent. Think well on this. 

As always, make me proud my boy.

x Minerva”

He fell back against his pillows and sighed, the next step in his great adventure was happening in less than 12 hours. And he couldn’t be arsed to care about the enormity of it. He set his alarm and closed his eyes. He would have to gather a gift not only for his meeting tomorrow, but something to send to Minerva for her application in assisting him.

~~**~~

Severus spent the morning in his lab, getting it ready for the possible apprentice that was coming today. It had taken nearly three hours of bemoaning but Minerva had convinced him to give the nearly graduated student a chance. Though she wouldn’t share their name, or gender, or really any part of their identity, she swore to him that the student was worthy and had gone out of her way to obtain their credentials. 

They seemed above average, if not a perfect apprentice, but if what Minerva said, was to be believed, then this pupil needed a strong hand and clear guidance to flourish. And he was blessed with the ability to be able to provide both. His potions lab was set up for a demonstration and his tables had been moved to the side. A good Defense master would be talented in all of the arts; potions, charms, arithmancy, runes, and even to a smaller degree divination. He was impressed with all of the grades for the pupil except potions, and was willing to bet that it was not the student, but the Potion professor, if all the other grades were as they were, then potions wouldn’t be as low as they were due to an inability to understand. 

His wards tingled on the edge of his skin, and he accepted that his peace was going to be a little broken for the rest of the day. But clapped his hands together behind his back and made for the stairs, it was either going to end up for the best, or it was going to be a great disaster that he could hold over Minerva’s head for the rest of her life. Either way, it appeared it might be a win for him. 

He was reaching the first floor landing, when a soft polite knock sounded o his door. He straightened his frame, took a deep breath, and opened the door – 

To Harry Potter.


	2. A Mutual Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They must learn to speak to one another for any communication to be complete.

Harry had stood on the edge of the three story brick building and focused for nearly 10 minutes on his breathing. Easing it in, and out, and in, and out. He could do this. He could prove his worth, and he could earn an apprenticeship. He held in his hand a box wrapped as well as he could, and over his shoulder was a knapsack with all that he may need to meet any tests that were set out. He took one more breath, and stepped across the threshold of the small front yard, and up the concrete and brick path, and felt the glamour that he had painstakingly used that morning melt from his face. This was going to be a good master, if their wards were built to show visitors true identity. 

His heart nudged up to racing and in his throat he felt a tight restriction start to creep in. He could do this! No matter what, he would ask that they allow him the chance to prove his merit, and earn his chance. 

His knock was much more timid than he intended, but didn’t want to be imposing. He was 5 minutes early and he would hope this showed a desire and willingness to learn, an eagerness to earn his place. 

His throat constricted painfully, when the door opened and Severus Snape, Professor of Potions, Double agent, spy, Saviour in his own right, Double Order of Merlin, and star of his most fervent fantasies opened the door. 

They both stood there, for what felt like eons, sizing each other up in their own way. Harry took a moment to close his eyes, and held out his package, the gift to show his earnest. He held it there for nearly a minute, before Snape took it from his outstretched hand. 

“I suppose you may come in.”

Harry followed him through the door and closed it softly behind him. Snape had gone down a few steps to what appeared to be the den; the well-lit room showcasing all of the books and artifacts that he owned. He focused on not shuffling his feet, and not fidgeting. One of the parts of defense mastery so far had been forced meditation tactics, to stay in the moment and not show the other party what you were feeling or thinking. 

His walls were up and as strong as he could make them, but he knew that Snape was the strongest legilimens that there was alive now that Voldemort and Dumbledore were both dead. 

He waited patiently, not putting his bag down and not making a move to impose in any way. 

He watched as Snape paced over to his desk and sat down. The package that he’d brought sitting now on the desk between them. He’d never been more happy that he’d gone a bit overboard with his gift. 

Snape did some diagnostic spells on the package, and looked Harry dead in the eyes as he muttered the final spell and the poorly wrapped packaging slid from the box. 

The man broke eye contact was the wooden box showed itself, with gold, silver, and bronze filigree throughout the entire box, and latched with a small hook and claw. Harry watched as Snape flicked the latch open and opened the lid. In the small box was a set of metal balls, one silver, blue, green and white. The other red, gold, purple and orange. He squinted his eyes and lifted them from the silk that was underneath them. 

Harry watched as one of his favorite possessions was fondled in the large hands of the man sitting at the desk. “What are these, Potter?”

He took a deep breath, focusing on not stuttering, and spoke, “They are meditation balls, Professor. They are weighted differently and can be used with several spells to bring you out of your current consciousness into another. Most commonly they are rotated in the left hand for introspection, and in the right hand for autoscopy.” He kept where he was as he watched the balls rotate in first the left and then the right hand of Snape. 

“I can provide you the spells. I found those when I was in Morocco several years ago, so the spells are of Moroccan descent but they are easy once you learn them, sir.” He added the sir with a bit of hesitation, and wanted to slap himself. He was nervous, and far more nervous than he would have been with nearly any other human on the planet. 

“Let us see if you are worth my time, before you waste it sharing spells that I will not use. I won’t be accused of keeping a gift, if I find you lacking and send you on your way” Snape said and moved from his seat. “Follow me.” 

He brushed past Harry, and he had to close his eyes, the scent of rosemary and cedar were strong and nearly overwhelming. He hadn’t known that mixture was arousing, but found that his already hard beating heart, was beating faster and his breath caught in his throat. “Yes, Professor.” He turned and followed the man up the narrow stairs to the second floor landing. 

The large open space was full of cauldrons and ingredients, light pouring in from the windows and a breeze entering off the back wall caused Harry to look harder and see the slats that were opened allowing the room to be ventilated. “Place your bag over there, and stand in the middle of the room.” 

Harry did as ordered and stood in the middle of the room, moving to take a defensive stance, and kept a wary eye on the older, taller, wiser man. The spell nearly caused him to fall back, but he moved his left foot back, bracing against the sting of the hex and pushed through a silent shield, a glimmer coming up but no attack. He was taken by surprise when another hex came from behind him, he must have missed a mirror, and bit back an oath as the stinging hex hit him square in the arse. He moved to the left and crouched down as two more spells in quick succession flew towards him, his shield, taking the full brunt of one and deflecting the other back at Snape. 

This went on for several moments before Harry decided that it was time to do more than defend. He summoned his wand from his ankle holster and silently jinxed the stool behind Snape, watching it move forward as he calmly waited. Snape kept pushing jinx after hex after spell at him. At the last moment when the stool had crawled just behind Snape Harry stood up and yelled “Solorus Fagia” Snape blocked the spell but was pushed back regardless, and took a tumble back. Harry heard him mutter an oath, but didn’t break concentration. The stool legs wrapping around Snapes left foot, Harry sent a jelly jinx to the other leg. Muttering a spell under his breath and watched as the cuffs on the Masters arms came loose and attracted to the other, held the hands together as if magnetized. 

Harry waited for several moments, before taking a step forward to assist the man up. As he took the first step a wall of vines fell from the ceiling and tied him up, pulling him from the floor and hang him in the air. Snape moved quickly, an aggressive “finite” falling from his lips as the stool fell inert and the jinx on his other leg was ended. He threw several hexes at Harry as he hung there, and he took most of them, with his wand on the floor and his hands tied completely up, he was drastically down on his options. Hoping that Snape would not take this in anything other than exactly what it was, he pushed out with his mind and invaded the thick erect walls he had up. 

It was evident that Snape had not expected this, Harry figured it had more to do with the fact that the last time Occlumency was trained between them, he’d failed so miserably, that it may never have crossed Snapes mind that he’d learned not only to occlude but had learned to attack. 

He pushed through the spells that Snape kept flinging at him, breaking down the exterior walls of the man’s mind. Not wishing to dig too deep, but enough to push him away from being able to keep the vine spell up. He felt the vines loosen a bit on his left arm and flexed until he had the ability to move his hand. Just as he was seeing a memory or a thought of him in Snapes mind, he was ejected and summoned his wand, banishing the vines himself and falling to the ground, he summoned a fire all potion from his sack and caught it, throwing it at the Master. 

Snape caught it in the air, but Harry had anticipated this and muttered the spell to shatter the vial, watching as the liquid poured down Snapes arm once touching the air, lighting aflame along his clothing. Snape summoned something from one of the walls and it shattered to the left of Harry, and he ignored it, assuming Snape missed in his haste to stop the burning. Harry moved to take a step back and summoned the ice spell, as a noxious smell arose from the ground. Harry gagged and immediately was consumed with the need to throw up, nothing could stop him from pouring the contents of his breakfast on the floor. 

He fell to the ground, and keep heaving even when he heard Snape put the flame out and took steps towards him. He knew he’d been beaten, and was unable to do anything about it. The roiling in his gut, continuing to be attacked by the small vial that was pouring a smell into the air around him.

“You have surprised me today, Potter.” Harry watched out of the corner of his eye, as Snape leaned forward and banished the vial and the liquid, the air immediately cleansed, allowing Harry to ability to take a full breath. 

He kept his head down, “I appreciate the chance, Professor. If you’d allow me a moment to catch my breath, I will be out of your home posthaste.” His heart heavy, he would reach out to Minerva and let her know that he’d honestly tried his best. 

“What are you on about, Potter?” Harry was pulled upright with a firm hand on his collar and took another moment to breathe through a wave of nausea. 

“I lost, sir.” He said, confused at the question presented to him. 

“Of course you did. Had you won, I would have been more than surprised. You are in search of an apprenticeship, no matter how large your ego is, you were hardly going to win against me. You’ve proven you have ingenuity and merit. I will take you on.” 

Harry brushed off his sweater and took another fortifying breath. “Thank you, Professor.”

“The toilet is through that door, clean yourself up and meet me downstairs in 15 minutes. We will discuss the contract.” With that Snape left to go upstairs, to what Harry assumed was his private quarters. 

Harry moved to retrieve is bag, and went to the bathroom, taking a moment to splash water on his face contemplate just what had happened. He felt like he’d done well, but the fact that Snape also thought so, was in its own way both confusing and redeeming. He hadn’t even had an opportunity to utilize all that he’d brought with him, and was rather unsettled by the turn of events the entire day had taken. He quickly changed from his sweater to a lighter cotton button up that he had packed and dragged a wet hand through his hair to try to bring some semblance of peace to it. One last look in the mirror and he headed downstairs, he’d made it this far, he wasn’t about to lose Snape to any form of tardiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER CHAPTER? WHAT? LOL I finished two more tonight and figured I would load another for you all. Please as always COMMENTS AND KUDOS remind me I am not alone on this huge blue dot. 
> 
> Love Always xoxo Jacks


	3. Coming to An Agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Setting on fine details.

Ch. 3  
Severus looked at himself in the mirror of his own personal bath, and counted to ten. He would be sending Minerva a most aggressively worded missive when Potter left this evening. He was faced all too clearly with all the choices he had made in the first 40 years of his life that he’d spent the last several years trying to forget. 

Potter looked fit, and with a face to the name of the grades that Snape had been privy to, and the essays that he’d read, he was having a hard time pushing his previous vitriol at the boy. He could see clearly that Potter had progressed in the recent decade and he’d be a fool to not take the boy under his wing. To reject such possibility would say more to a hidden cowardice than it would to anything else, and Severus was anything but foolish or a coward. 

He stripped down and changed into charcoal grey slacks and a black silk button up. He tied his hair back and located his spectacles. If they were going to bicker over contracts for the next several hours, he’d at least be able to see the damn thing and look the part. It’d been years since he’d last had an opportunity to take on an apprentice, and he’d never found one that suited his needs. Potter, he hoped, wouldn’t fail him. 

Taking a last deep breath and a moments reflection seeking patience, he left for the first floor. He rather thought he’d need all the patience that he would be able to muster, for the evening ahead. 

~~**~~

Harry had gone downstairs but Snape wasn’t there yet. Too nervous to sit on any of the furniture, he stood by the front window and looked out into the front garden. His nerves were raw and his thoughts were a jumbled mess of anxiety, confusion, and a desperate desire to know if this was all some sort of fever dream at the end of his classes. 

The footsteps on the stairs alerted him to the need to occlude and as his walls went up he turned around and looked up at Snape as he crossed the top of the stairs and made his way down. What little air was in Harry’s lungs got stuck in his throat. The man was in fitted grey slacks and what appeared to be a silk black shirt. If he wasn’t so sure that an apprenticeship with Snape would be the absolute best thing for his future, he would have left right then. He was sure to embarrass himself in the next 12 months at some point, and to sign any contract that prolonged contact with this man, was akin to signing a letter of defeat. 

“Potter, there are several things that we need to discuss in order to make sure that this agreement between the both of us works to the best advantage. But I refuse to do this without tea.” With that Snape swooped through the den and into what Harry presumed was the kitchen. “Come here!” 

Harry stumbled and moved forward, shame clawing in his gut. He needed to look like he could handle himself, not that he was an idiotic twit. 

“First of all, stop with the nervous demeanor. You are going to win no favors with that attitude. I am a harsh and thorough Master of the Defense arts, but I will run right through you if you don’t find that spine that you had when you were a twit in school, do I make myself clear?” 

“Crystal, Professor.” 

“Second, you will refer to me as Master Snape, or Professor. Regardless of location, who we are with, or tone of conversation. If I am to teach you, then we must maintain a level of professionalism that denotes who is in authority and who is not.”

“Understood, Professor.”

“Third, do you drink chai or black tea?”

Harry, ready for another item on the list of his training, was mildly taken back, and the chuckle left his lips before he had a moment to refrain. He watched in horror as Snape turned around and looked at him. “Did I say something humorous?” 

“No, Professor, I wasn’t expecting a question on the tea that I take. I will drink just about any tea that you can provide, minus Jasmine.” 

“That is fine. Is there anything that you need to add to the standard apprentice contract, that deviates from the original type?” Snape moved to the kettle that was on the burner and set it aflame with wordless and wandless magic. 

“I know that the standard contract notes that I should stay with you for the entirety of the length of training, however, I do not believe that I can do that, for personal reasons. I would like to be able to stay in my flat and come here or wherever I train, daily. You can obviously set the time and place as you wish and I will never be late, but it is important to me that I have my own space, Professor.” 

“And why is this? Do you have a paramour that needs to split your time from training? You understand that the entire point of living where you train, is so that you can be surrounded at all times with learning and no distractions. If I were to let you have this, how can I be assured that you will not be distracted with women and drink?” 

Harry leaned back in his chair and contemplated the best way to get what he wanted. He surmised that the truth was his best option, as lying to Snape had never won him any favors in the past. “I suffer from nightmares nearly every night. I refuse to be a nuisance to you or a detriment to your livelihood, as I presumed that you would still be brewing while I am living here. Additionally, I have wards at my home that alert me when I get too far into one of the worse types of dreams. I am not currently seeing anyone, and if you wish you can put restrictions in the contract to both lovers and drink so as to keep what you imagine my transgressions to be, in line. Professor.” 

He studied his hands, and hoped that his frustration wouldn’t be taken as disrespect. They were merely discussing the terms of the contract, and Snape wasn’t beholden to take him on, until the terms were written and signed by them both. 

The silence stretched out for longer than Harry felt comfortable. He continued to study his hands, and think about the 9 rules of war casting. Anything to keep his mind off the fact that Snape hadn’t agreed and had yet to say anything. He found that he wasn’t nervous of being made fun of, but more that he might be found lacking – it was disturbing how much that thought angered him. 

“You will stay here. I am, inarguably the foremost Potioneer in the Eastern Hemisphere, arguably the world. If you are still having nightmares more than 10 years after the war, every night as you say, then you should have come to me or a healer sooner. There are things that we can do to assist in lessening them or stopping them altogether.” Harry watched as Snape decanted the tea leaves into the cups and poured the water over them and left them on the counter to steep as he turned and leaned against it, staring intently at him. 

“You will never live up to your full potential if you continue to hide away from what is causing these dreams. Additionally, you will never be able to completely recover and live a fulfilling life if you are so worried that the person you are when you are at your most defenseless will leave an unpalatable taste to those you surround yourself with. Though, I will still state that while you are living here, in payment for the potions and the work that I will be doing for you in addition to your training, we will still add the terms for no lovers or drink while under my tutelage. I refuse to waste my time training you, if you are going to be distracted by ale and women.” He took the steeped tea from the counter and brought it over to the table, setting them down and waving his hand. Parchment and quills came floating in, from what Harry assumed was the den office. “Is that agreeable to you?” 

Harry thought on this, and figured it was as good as he was going to get. But it was settling a little rough in his stomach the idea that he may not be able to take a lover in the next 12 months, but Snape may bring a woman home while he was here. “The only thing I want to add, is that if I am to be trained here, and stay here, and stop seeking companionship and drink. Then, I would like for you to be as…” he searched for the right word, “undistracted as possible. I would like to add a stipulation that you as well will not seek a lover in the next 12 months, so as to make sure that I get the best of your attention other than your business, Professor.” He took a sip of the tea, and held himself proud that he didn’t make a noise at the scalding water hitting his tongue and lips. 

“How dare you?” he heard the anger in Snapes voice and looked him in the eye. “You come in here, you ask me to train you, and you dare to put stipulations on what may or may not distract me from training you?” 

Harry took a moment, and evened his breath. This was for the best, because he knew the moment he saw Snape with anyone else he would forever shame himself. “I want the absolute best training in the world. You are the foremost Master of both Defense and Potions. I would never presume to take your livelihood away, but I know that I can seek older Masters with longer time in the field. They may not be the best that you are, but they will make up for it by providing me their undivided attention. It will be in your mind for the rest of your life, whether I could have been better, if I could have flourished more, if you could have trained the best Master of the Defense Against the Dark Arts, because you decided that a warm cunt was more important than training me and focusing on making me the best that I can be.” Harry didn’t take his eyes away from Snapes and felt that fire that used to rise within him when Snape was near in school, up in his chest. It had been so long since he’d felt that fire swell, it felt good. 

Snape clenched his fists and took what appeared to be deep breaths. Harry had to refrain from laughing, if only Snape knew that he’d just been doing the very same upstairs in the bathroom before he’d come down here. 

“Very well.” With that and a shocked soft gasp from Harry the contract and all their terms appeared between them. Snape took the quill and pricked his forefinger with it, and signed his name. He turned the parchment around and provided the second quill to Harry who did the same. “You training will start next Monday at 0700. You will be expected to be here Sunday night to have your things ready in time to start. I will accept no failure, Potter. Is that understood?” 

Harry pricked his finger and signed his name with as little flourish as possible. His life had just changed, and he couldn’t find it within himself to feel any anxiety anymore. “Crystal, Professor.”  
~~**~~

Severus slammed his silver cauldron down on the table and summoned his ingredients for his variant on dreamless sleep. One he had designed for himself when the nightmares never ended and the war had haunted his every waking moment. He was fuming. How dare that insolent whelp demand anything from him? How dare he put stipulations on his love life. 

It wasn’t just because he hadn’t had a love life, or the fact that he wasn’t particularly keen on finding someone either. It had nothing to do with the fact that Potter was beautiful and masculine and would more than likely cause Severus heartburn and lost sleep in the coming year. It most assuredly had nothing to do with the fact that Potter hadn’t confirmed one way or the other if he was interested in men or women but had openly implied that Severus was. Not that it mattered, it didn’t. It would never come up, and was not a part of training. But he was infuriated because he dared to imply that Severus couldn’t train and seek companionship at the same time. That somehow he might be found lacking in either department should he do so. And it rankled. 

The brew in the cauldron turned a deep red and he added the sage and ginger root. Focusing on his breathing and remaining calm while he stirred the correct number of times and the correct speed. 

His focus on the potion allowed the other thoughts from the day surge forward and he found that he was at a loss for why Minerva would have done this to him. Of course he was the best in his fields, respectively. But she knew that he was a man seeking peace from a life of power hungry men. She knew that the war was behind him, and must have known that Potter sweeping into his life would bring those thoughts, those memories, those regrets to the forefront. 

He settled the stirring rod on the side of the cauldron and extinguished the flame. It would have to sit under the moon for a full night before he could decant it. 

Sighing he left the lab and went to his bathroom, the next year was going to be a mess and he had no one to blame but himself. 

~~**~~

“Snape. You mean, greasy, dungeon bat, with swoopy robes and a piss poor attitude, Snape?” Ron said, as he sat there with his ale in hand. The breeze coming through the front of his small flat was the only saving grace to the heat in Harry’s cheeks. He’d fire called Ron and Hermione the moment he’d gotten home. He had less than two days to get his entire flat packed and moved to storage. He’d called the landlord and had informed him of his need for swift departure, which had been painful, as he’d had to cough up nearly 6 months’ rent to pay for the break in lease. 

“The very same.” He said, levitating another piece of art off his wall and into a box. “’Mione, can you help me with this one?” 

Hermione who was in the bathroom packing up the toiletries, came out and assisted with the artwork. “Are you excited? He is the best in his field, and you could hardly ask for a better opportunity to ask him all the questions you’ve been wanting to, for the last 10 years.” She said, flinging a stinging hex at Ron, who got up and scuttled over to the boxes in the kitchen area to start helping. 

“I don’t think that ‘hey do you think you fancied my mom, and that’s why you did all the things you did?’ or ‘have you ever thought that even though you fancied my mom, you might think about giving it a go with me’ are topics that are going to come up in the next 12 months, ‘Mione. And if either of them do, you will know immediately, as I will send a flare letting you know that my death is imminent.” 

They all laughed. The smile never leaving his face. They finished packing well after midnight and sat exhausted on his lumpy couch. “Come over with us, and catch a nap. We will have your things out of here and at the Burrows’ garage tomorrow, and you can get some sleep before you head over to Snapes.” 

He looked at Hermione and felt a wave of love for his friends. Ron snoring on her shoulder his hair a mess of sweat and dust. 

“Yeah, that sounds alright.” 

The next morning found Harry awake at 11 am with a million things on his list that he needed to accomplish before he went over to Snapes. He went shopping for extra potions equipment, making sure that he would not be imposing on the Master for any extra things that he would be doing while he was under tutelage. He went to Diagon Alley and purchased several burn and acid proofed shirts and slacks (if they were form fitting and of nice quality, it had nothing to do with the fact that he refused to look like a schlep next to the man who made slacks and silk button ups look like they were a gift of merlin.) 

He purchased several bags worth of groceries as well and shrunk them down. He would assist with more than just being trained, he would make sure that Snape didn’t seem him as a pest or a detriment to his daily life. He swung by Ron and Hermione’s and after one last hug and extra kisses on the cheek he portkeyed to Snapes back garden. Three deep, fortifying breaths and a stern pep talk later, and he knocked on the back door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now at 42k words, and still going... I really don't know where this is going to end but I am trying to finish out this week so that I can have a fully fleshed out fic for you all. Hope you are all doing well <3 As always, comments - and - kudos are my bread and butter. Love Always, Jacks


	4. A Tenuous Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First steps into the communal discomfort are always awkward.

Ch. 4  
Severus had been up well into the night, making space for his new apprentice and working through several years’ worth of animosity that was layered beneath his skin. He had grown over the years to understand that his hatred of Potter had stemmed from a deep loathing of the boy’s father as well as his own self-loathing for the death of Lily. He also had grown to understand that Potter wasn’t the insolent aggressive prick that he’d always assumed he had been. Though it had been dozens of dinners shared with Minerva over the last decade that had assuaged him of this error of judgement, it had been the night, nearly seven years prior, that Minerva had lost her patience and took him to Hogwarts after several pints to show him the error of his ways. She’d shoved him forward and his face into the gleaming dish of memories, before he’d truly understood the life the boy had led. 

The memories were forfeited by Potter when he was in a healers ward after the war. He’d given them to Minerva so that she could understand some lingering questions, and so that he’d not focus on them so much. 

Severus had been assaulted with visuals of an incredibly young Potter starving in a small locked cupboard. He’d seen images after images of beatings and threats and bars on windows. He’d seen the tears streaked down the cheeks of a 11 year old returning from school, imagining his life would be different now that he knew magic was real, only to discover that he was being punished for the freakiness of his gift. He’d seen the scratches on the stomach, and had all but felt the hunger as it clawed through the skin. He’d watched in growing horror at the night and day after night and day of assault, that finally resulted in the most revolting memory he’d ever laid eyes on. 

He’d been forced to watch the night that Vernon had molested Potter while he’d been tied to the railing of the stairs after what appeared to be the summer Black had died. He’d watched what little light there was in the eyes of, his then most hated student, fade into blankness as he’d been touched and groped and whipped for a myriad of transgressions that made little to no sense. 

He’d tumbled out of the pensieve and had fallen to the floor, the tears unbidden were streaming down his face and he’d sought comfort the only way he could. With the first hug that he’d had in nearly twenty years, he cried for the boy that had grown in such nightmarish conditions. 

Severus used magic to build walls up in the back garden for a small garage that would do to house Potter, while he dwelt on the fact that all the time he’d been living a life of a double agent, it appeared that Potter had been doing the same. It came as no shock that Potter was having nearly nightly nightmares, and he would stake a significant sum on the fact that a large majority of the dreams, derived from him not dealing with the pain of his childhood, and instead giving the memories to Minerva to dispose of. 

With every wall, window, and part of the garage that he built, he put ward after ward to protect the boy, he sighed vocally, man, as well as provide comfort and warnings for when he was not at rest in his sleep. 

Severus knew that his knowledge of Potters childhood would have to come up eventually, for him the memories were a dangling vine that was always there ready to trip him up on the path of life. His only hope, was that it would be brought up by Potter himself, and he could act shocked and appropriately appalled. 

_… he would never tell a soul, neither Minerva nor Potter, nor the very devil himself. That the next day after he’d borne witness to those abominable memories, he’d sought Vernon himself in a Tescos in South Croyden. He’d never tell a soul how he’d stalked the man back to his home and waited for the night to cover him as he slunk into the house. He’d never tell a soul, how he’d waited until Vernon was asleep and Petunia was laying there next to him, as he crawled into their minds and filled them with vision after vision of pain and torture and horrid, fearful, beast after beast for nearly three weeks until they would be haunted for the rest of their lives._

_He would never tell a soul, but it didn’t mean he regretted it at all._

~~**~~

Severus heard the knock on the back door and swept his eyes over his home. He’d made every effort to organize so that his abode was prepared for training of an apprentice. He’d gone especially out his way to remove glass vials and rare or expensive artifacts from visible or higher shelving. Knowing their history, he figured it would do to be cautious. 

He felt the peace of his previous life slipping away, and accepted that regardless of the way the previous decade had gone, the rest of his life would be different, there was no escaping that training Potter in Defense would alter his life for good. 

He felt his eyes squint when he raked them across the man on his back patio. Bags upon bags were laden on the wooden decking, and Potter looked harried. 

“Explain.” 

He watched as his pupil took a gulp before speaking, “I had everything shrunk, but I believe that you may have a spell layered in your warding that doesn’t allow for contraband to be smuggled across your property.” 

Severus reluctantly found himself impressed, he did indeed have several spells for just that. “However, that doesn’t explain the myriad of accouterment that you have brought to my home.” He felt that he had hidden well his shock.

“We didn’t really go over chores,” Potter moved and with several wandless and wordless spells the bags shrank again and accio’d to his pockets, the trunk that had been enlarged behind him following shortly after. None the less, the intrepid man continued as if the display was nary a daily ritual. “I know that you are private man, but I also figure that I am about to traipse in and run riot through your careful plans that I am sure you have. In trying to accommodate the drastic change to your life, I am attempting to mitigate as much damage to your comfort as possible.” Severus watched as Potter tried not to fidget, but he knew that being left on the back patio created a tension that he wanted to see the man work through. “I am a more than adequate cook. I enjoy keeping a clean home, and am willing to work out a schedule to assist with more of your menial chores, so as to create some time for your livelihood, that I am otherwise taking you from.” 

Severus stayed silent and stepped back from the door, “You would do well to try and fidget less when you are in a tense situation. In.” He kept his hands in his pockets and kept a hawk like eye on the man that entered his home. He’d gauge that Potter had gained a stone since he’d left Hogwarts, and though it wasn’t nearly enough to fill him out it was enough to make him look fit and older. His hair was thicker but hung longer, creating a less wild look. The glasses were gone and instead he would have gauged Potter had seen a wizarding optometrist. “The veg goes in the chill box to the left of the refrigerator; fruits, drink, and meats go in the refrigerator. Spices and any other dry goods go in the pantry.” He closed the door and watched Potter levitate the bags one at a time out of his pockets and start the tedious task of putting the grocery away.

“Monday through Friday training will start at 0700 in the morning, you will take 1 break for lunch and that will be at 1300 and your official training will end every day at 1800. However, I would suggest that you remember that there will be lessons that will require you to do your own private study. I take breakfast at 0530 every morning, you will not be required to make breakfast or eat it with me, as I am particular about how my mornings go. I will be working on my potions from 0600 – 0700 and you will not disturb my lab during that time, unless it’s an emergency.” He moved forward and moved the tomato from the veg group to the fruit. 

“You will be responsible for your own lunches throughout the week. I will cook Monday through Thursday and you can cook dinner the rest of the week, except Sunday. You will have one day of rest and Sunday will be that day. I presume that you were not able to talk yourself out of the Weasley Sunday Supper. As such you will be allowed to have the day off, but I expect you to be home Sunday nights no later than 2100.” He continued to talk as he moved to the tea cabinet and took out the prep for an evening tea. 

“I will be working in my lab on Saturdays, during this time you will be allowed to study either in the lab or on your own. However, I will not be available to inane chatter during this time, as I have created a schedule that should allow me to not get behind with my regular sales.” His eyes swept over the small cauldrons and potions utensils that Potter placed on the dining room table, noting that the man was nodding his head and writing notes on a pad as he organized and filed away the grocery. 

“Why’ve you brought potions supplies, Potter?” 

“Well, Professor, I didn’t want to assume that I would be able to use your personal supplies, as you are Potioneer who makes their livelihood on sales. So I purchased my own, so that I would not take any of your stock or supplies away from you.” 

Severus mulled this over in his mind, “bloody good intentioned Gryffindors…” he mumbled. 

“That is acceptable.” 

“Professor, may I…?”

“Continue.”

“I saw in your garden just now, that you are missing some herbs, flowers, and veg that I have a particular talent in cultivating. I can do most of the planting and herbology in planters, only some would have to be moved to the garden itself and I believe that you’d have enough room for me to do so.” 

“What could you possibly need to garden for, Potter?” 

“It helps with the…” 

Severus kept himself quiet, letting the man speak for himself. Finding that he would have been more annoyed with the words that people use to fill the void, instead of the silence to build the correct phrasing. 

“It helps with the anxiety.” 

“What would you be planting?” 

“Strawberries and basil to start, but later in the summer I would be able to plant pint melons and in the beginning of fall I would start on Indian sage and turmeric.” 

He rolled the items around in his mind and found several common house potions that used most of the items listed, except one. “Pint melons?” 

“Oh, yes!” He looked up from the tea prep and over at the man at the dining table, organizing the potions supplies and the remaining dry goods for the pantry. The blush not lost on Severus. 

“Excuse my outburst, Professor. Pint melons, are a variety of melons such as watermelons, cantaloupe, etcetera that one can grow in a small container and shape them as one would, so as to not take up the normal space of any of those fruits per their normal growth cycle. Generally, I tend to grow them in potion vials, and they get no larger than several ounces at most. They are delicious for juices and are often used for soaps and cleansers for the home.” 

“I will look into the melons and advise on how to best see their place in the garden. As for the rest, since I agree they can be planted and grown in containers, you can do as you wish. If you are quite done with the grocery, I would like to get on with the tour of your room and board.” 

“Yes, of course, Professor.”

He moved to the backdoor again and waited as Potter pocketed all the potions supplies and small toiletries that had come out of the bags before moving out into the back garden. 

“I have built you a small garage that will house in you in the coming 12 months. I was not willing to lose any of my personal space within my home.” 

He ignored the soft snort that he heard behind him, and continued to the small building that was at the back of his property. No more than 400 square feet, it fit snuggly within the garden and the gate in the far back corner. 

He opened the door after having Potter place his hand on it for the wards. “I have placed several wards on this building alone, as well as keyed them into the wards for the home over all. I will be aware of any dangers that face you, should any do so and vice versa. This is not a grandiose manor, but it should do and allow you some privacy.” He stepped aside, and kept his eyes on Potter for any sign of an adverse reaction. It wasn’t as small as a cupboard, but it was still smaller than some would consider comfortable. 

To his own credit, he hid well the flush of confusion when Potter all but beamed and flew into the small garage, immediately enlarging his private belongings and putting things away. 

“Ehmm, there is a small kitchenette that will do for tea, coffee, and breakfast mostly. The back corner as you can see is a small bath, with a toilet and sink for personal ablutions. I provided the bed and furniture, though if you have things that you’d rather place in here, please let me know and I can move the things I provided.”

“No! This… excuse me, sorry Professor. This is great. I have some small items that I wanted to put up and this would do well for that.” Severus watched as Potter went over to the kitchenette and looked out the rather large window (he wouldn’t look too much into why he’d felt compelled to put the window nor the skylight for what was merely a place to rest, for the man.) “You can see the garden and the stars at night! This is rather much more than I expected, Professor. Thank you.” 

“I will admit that I was unwilling to lose more of my garden, so I do apologize for the lack of space –“

“No, please, believe me, this is perfect.” 

Severus leaned against the door frame and watched the man enlarge several paintings and watched as they affixed themselves to the walls, painting supplies following and set up in the corner where the small work table was. The clothing that was in the trunk was levitated and put in the wardrobe and a crocheted blanket was placed with reverence on the bed and something small was placed under the pillow, faster than Severus could catch. The final shock came from what appeared to be an African dream catcher that Harry physically hung from the skylight where the small beads caught the remaining sun and littered the ground with green, red, blue and yellow lights. 

“That should be about it. I saw that you were putting tea on, might I share with you as we finalize any remaining scheduling and training items in prep for tomorrow, Professor?” 

Severus felt a small bead of an echo to an emotion he’d nary felt in longer than he’d like to remember and pushed it down. Mentally chastising himself to quiet contemplation later on it. 

“Follow me.”

~~**~~

Severus woke up to his alarm and worked through the clawing paranoia and anxiety that engulfed him as it did every moonlit morning. The carry-over of nearly 20 years of double agency and a lack of freedom brought with it a myriad of deficiencies that he would deal with for the rest of his natural life, he was sure. He moved to get up and noted the smell that was not common place for his average 0400 wake up call. The sugary sweet smell of pastries, coupled with nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger filled him with a minor hum of consternation. 

He let out an aggrieved sigh as he made his way to the loo. Should the intruder wish to murder him, he figured that they’d be kind enough to wait until he was freshly showered and apparently fed. 

He entered his kitchen some time later to the sound of muffled pots and pans and the oven door closing. He strained past the muffalato spell that was encompassing the kitchen, and could hear the faint Mozart that was cascading from what he assumed was his record player. Leaning against the wide entry way to the kitchen, he watched as Potter moved around with an almost cat like grace and a quietude that unnerved him. He could see that Potter was a quiet individual, not for the spell, but as if it was innate. As if to be loud would cause attention, and to cause attention was to be avoided. 

Severus felt his lip curl once again at the knowledge of Potters relatives and wished them another spat of ill will as he uncrossed his arms and cast a silent “finite.”

“I believe we discussed that you would not be required to cook breakfast.” He strode over to the kettle to set the water to boil. 

“I couldn’t sleep, I was excited for the training to start, Professor. I figured that the kitchen in my private quarters would be good for the bare minimum, but I was craving blueberry muffins and strawberry porridge, and if I made enough for you, then you might not be offended that I used your kitchen to do so.” 

Severus noted the small hints of a smile that laced the voice of the other man, and found that in as much as he wanted to be annoyed for the sheer joy of doing so, he also couldn’t turn down fresh blueberry muffins and sweet porridge. “Then by all means, but if you fall asleep during my training, be prepared for the worst. Do I make myself clear?” His hands moved swiftly over the tea preparations and though he could have sworn he heard a delicate giggle, he chose to rather ignore it, as he was aiming for intimidating. 

“Yes, Professor.”

Severus didn’t buy the meek sounding accolade at all, but let it slide, as it was too early and he’d yet to take his tea. 

He moved to pour the contents of the hot water and steeped earl grey into two cups and placed one in front of the other man at the counter as he moved to exit the kitchen. 

“How long until you’ve finished making the muffins?” he didn’t sound as if they were too enticing. 

“Hmm.. should be ready and sufficiently cooled in 20 minutes, Professor.”

“Good. If you wish to feed me so that you can avoid my consternation regarding the use of my kitchen, then you can bring them up when they are sufficiently cooled. Knock twice on the door to ensure that I am not in the midst of anything hazardous.” With that he left the kitchen and the sweet smells that assaulted his all too hungry stomach with the aroma of sugar and bliss. It wouldn’t do to show his hand regarding sweets, it wouldn’t do at all.

Approximately 21 minutes later and a soft rapping dragged his attention away from the task of setting out his ingredients for each potion near each matching cauldron. He had 7 potions to complete today and 5 should be done before Potters training even began. Simple bruise pastes and pepper ups for Hogwarts. The other two he would start while Potter partook of lunch, and would be completed by the time training resumed the following morning. 

“Enter.” He said, as he counted the exact number of fig leaves and ginger root that would be needed for the modified pepper up. 

The pulling of the latch and the soft ‘schnik’ of the door coming open was all that he had before the wafting smell of blueberries and sugar assaulted him. His hunger having waited to consume his normal jam on toast mixing with the smell caused his stomach to do the most undignified rumble. 

“Sorry for the delay, Professor. I figured that you might have decided not to eat at your normal time in preparation for the muffins. As such I brought you two and I made bacon and an extra cuppa.” All the items were set down on his desk, well away from the contents of any of the potions. 

“I appreciate the gesture. Be aware, I do not expect this moving forward, you are not a house elf and I will not have you waiting on me hand and foot, do I make myself clear?” moderating his tone to sound more unenthused than angry, and bothered with the hope that he came across exactly as he intended. 

“Of course, however…” He swept an eye over the man as he moved to his desk and sat back in his chair. 

“Out with it.”

“Well, I enjoy cooking. I haven’t had much opportunity in the past several years with work and school and, well, being single doesn’t necessarily promote the joy of cooking… I just…” he watched the bottom lip pull into the teeth and be gnawed on before popping back out and continuing. “If I do choose to cook, it will be of my own volition if it’s done so outside of the agreed upon contract. And if you don’t choose to eat what I cook, that is fine, but please do not feel the need to scorn my desire to provide this, as it is something I enjoy doing.”

“That’s quite the speech,” Severus leaned forward and picked up a muffin, immediately aware of the buttery softness and crumbly top. Working hard to stop the drool from escaping his lips. “Is your cooking even worth this very conversation, I wonder?” he kept a bored expression on his features as he tore a chunk of the muffin off and placed it to his lips. 

The groan was completely involuntary. The smirk on Potters face, making it incredibly difficult to close his eyes and savor the tasty treat, not wanting to provide more evidence of his enjoyment. “This, is… well done.” 

The laugh that bubbled out of Potter was charming to say the least, and Severus found himself struck once again with that webbed, echo of an emotion that he’d pushed down the previous evening. 

“Of course, Professor. My five time award winning blueberry muffins are ‘well done.’” 

He watched as Potter left the lab, the smile etched across his face, and just as he crossed the threshold into the passageway and stairs, Severus heard him mimic his earlier moan. 

The flash of a stinging hex hitting the arse just as Potter took his first step, was worth the laughing he heard, so long as he got to finish the muffins in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the Monday release! I wrote another chapter last night, and have a rough outline for another 2 more. Plus a pretty well formed and partially written ending... so it's still looking like a 60k fic. I love the comments and I value you all and hope you continue to love this story. I think it might be the first fic that I actually complete. 
> 
> Much love, Jacks


	5. Coming to a Pass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When will we learn that what we so deeply desire, the ability to prove ourselves, is often hidden in the shame we have at not knowing how.

Ch. 5  
It was torturous, the constant desire to prove that he was worth it, while also seemingly failing every opportunity proved to him to excel. Harry packed up the scones that he’d made that morning leaving a few for Snape to come across when he left his lab later, and mentally checked off all the things that he needed for the trip to the burrow. He’d forgotten to tell Hermione and Ron that he’d be able to come, so he knew that it would be a blind faith celebration that he’d survived his first week. 

His sigh was heavy leaden with defeat. Snape had provided one mock battle every day with no rules other than Avada Kedavra would not be used. He’d provided tools and homework to get Harry in the brewing techniques to make most commonly used potions for the Dark Arts. He had a schedule that he rigorously held himself to, including being up at 0500 every morning, going for a run down to Oxford grounds, coming back, showering and changing, entering the kitchen at 0600 every morning, reading some of the material over breakfast, finish up any outstanding homework or bits of training that he had questions on and then enter the lab at 0700. He would lay out all the potions equipment and various components of the chapter that he’d read the night before and get started working on the potions. 

But here is where the rub was, Snape hardly ever corrected him. He never told him what he was doing wrong. He just informed Harry when to do certain things, or left him completely to his own devices to read the chapter and move through the potion creation. Yet that wasn’t the worst part, even while Harry knew that his potions weren’t abysmal and could maybe assume that this was all that Snape would come to expect of him and therefore found no purpose in chastising him; the man didn’t even correct him when it came to dueling. 

Harry had, on multiple occasions, been beaten by Snape this week in their duels. He’d failed to see when Snape was going to counter, or when Snape had a hidden spell or had a trick loaded around the room or garden. He’d only won one duel, and honestly, Harry didn’t feel as though it was a verifiable win, because Snape’s potion boiled over and just as Snape went to move the shield from him to the cauldron, Harry sprung a jelly jinx on him causing the shield to not fully appear and allowing the contents to explode on Snape, leaving him slathered in a sticky gelatinous yellow paste that singed his robes. 

He moved to the garden apparation point, and turned to look at the second floor windows. What was he going to do. He was exhausted, he was learning but he didn’t think he was getting everything that he rather thought he expected in coming here, and he felt… oddly dissatisfied in ways that he couldn’t quite understand. With that final thought, he popped out of the garden and into the fields just outside of the burrow. 

The wind swept across the tall browned grass and the scent of lavender hit him and with it a wave of nostalgia that nearly caused him to cry. His eyes closed, and with a deep sigh he could all but feel the anxiety pour off of him and land at his feet in the dry earth awaiting it. 

He walked the quarter mile to the burrow and smiled as three children ran just to the left of the back field, with George and Charlie shooting fireworks off for the little ones to try and catch before they POPPED in the sky. 

Not wasting time to knock, he just opened the door and was immediately encompassed in the scent of pork pies and cherry cobbler. “Harry!” 

Hermione ran up to him and embraced him, followed nearly on her ankles was both Ginny and Ron. “Did you quit?” 

The laugh that bubbled up was as impossible to behold, as Ron’s look of hope was hilarious. “No Ron, I didn’t quit. Professor Snape gave me Sunday afternoons and evenings off so that I can come to the burrows for family dinner. The only stipulation was that I must be home by 2100.” He smiled as Ron muttered about small favors, and moved towards the kitchen. 

“Hello dear, and how is training?” Molly asked with a tight hug that nearly stole the breath straight out of Harry’s lungs. 

“It’s… good. It’s difficult, but that was to be expected, eh?” he said, taking the scones out of the bag and setting them on a tray to put at the table. 

“Ohhh, are those my favorite black currant and chocolate scones, young man?” Mr. Weasley came in from the back door, his hands covered in greasy stains and his smile infectious. 

“Haha! Yes, how could I not bring something to family dinner? And don’t tell mum, but you can sneak them after she goes to sleep, cause they are small.” Harry said in a stage whisper causing everyone within earshot to laugh and Molly to tut tut about secrets.

He did rather love his family. 

~~**~~

The house was quiet, blessedly, completely quiet. There was no banging of pots and pans in the kitchen downstairs, there wasn’t any spell casting being practiced in the garden in the back. There was no secondary person, reading the potion ingredients out loud as they stirred the rod. There was just the blessed sound of peace. 

Severus hated it, and he was furious that he hated it. 

The silence and the peace just a mere 3 weeks ago, had been his friend and his confidant. It had nursed him back to health, and had helped him come to terms with the gnawing ache that had seemed to follow him for most of his life. And yet, here he was. Lamenting the fact that the complete peace of his lab was more of a ringing echo of loneliness than anything else. 

However, that wasn’t all that was on his mind. Potter had been a model pupil in the previous weeks. There had been no outbursts, no sulky bouts of anger, no whinging about the level of homework and spellwork that was being given. And yet, Severus could tell that Potter wasn’t giving his best, even though he was doing well enough. He moved through the motions of making his potions, and practicing spellwork and completing each task that was directed toward him, but there was no fire, no passion, no joy.  
His doorbell rang, and he let out a sigh, noting that the potion that should have been completed prior to Minerva’s visit, was instead a mess of the wrong color and texture. He moved his wand over it, banishing the contents and placed the cauldron in a stasis so that it didn’t mold while he had his tea.

“Hello Minerva,” he said as he opened the door, noting the dowager was wearing her walking clothes, and sighed but this time internally. 

“Hello Severus, it’s a beautiful day. I figured we could walk down to the tea shop you showed me all those months ago, and enjoy a bit of the cool weather with me?” 

He regarded her with the knowledge that trying to talk her out of this would be as useless as any of the times he’d tried to talk the headmaster out of one of his suggestions. “I will change, please come in and sit down for a moment.” He turned and went up the stairs, not waiting for a reply, knowing that she would not be waiting for one either. 

A few minutes later, with a fitted black slacks, a lightweight button up in royal blue, soft grey loafers, and his hair tied up in a bun at the base of his neck that made him look less surly, he made his way downstairs. He grabbed for his cane, hoping that he wouldn’t need it, but knowing that when Minerva got it in her bonnet to go for a walk, they often did so far longer than his nerves could handle. 

“You look pleasant, Severus.” She touched his forearm as she walked past him and out to the front courtyard, and he had to still his breathing. It was difficult still to be touched, even after all the years of peace… being the victim of what felt like eternal abuse, made one wary of all forms of affection when physical. 

“As do you, madam. Let us be on, I would like my tea sooner rather than later, and I wasn’t anticipating making a trek to obtain such.” 

“Oh don’t be a gruff, Severus. The exercise will be good for you, as will getting out of the house.”

He took a breath, and crooked his arm, and noticed that she smiled at him before placing her own arm through. He knew these small steps made her feel a sense of pride, and was rather alright with letting her feel so, though Salazar forbid should he ever admit so. 

“How is training our boy?” She asked. The fact he didn’t scoff over the insinuation of mutual ownership of the young man that he was training, allowed him time to contemplate the very topic that he was hoping to discuss with the Gryffindor Headmistress.

“I had actually wished to discuss him with you while we had our tea today.” He moved around the light post and took a step in front of her when a pair of runners went past them on the trail, to shelter her from the strangers on the path. “He seems to not have a singular talent, so far as I can glean.” 

“Severus, how dare you continue to abide by old and recognized faulty grudges?” 

He played back what he’d said, and figured it made more sense to explain the overall issue. “You misunderstand me, please let me explain. Potter doesn’t have any fire, the same boy who would create above standard potions in my OWL and NEWT level courses, no longer exists. He creates potions that would pass a review, but there is nothing spectacular in there chemical makeup.” He moved her arm and positioned her behind him at the corner, so that should a car hit a water puddle she would not be harmed. “Additionally, he is doing average if mediocre in our spellwork as well. I was rather thinking that he would at least be excelling in this, but he seems to just be existing and getting through the training.” They moved across the street, and he helped her up the stairs to the small tea shop that held possibly 12 chairs and several scattered tables. 

They took their seats in the bay window and the pale young girl came to get their orders before disappearing to the kitchens again. 

“He doesn’t complain, he doesn’t argue, he doesn’t really discuss any of his ideas. He does the homework that I provide. He sticks to the potions in the text. He practices wand movement and spellcasting in the garden in the back. He doesn’t discuss theory with me, unless I bring it up in the lesson. Honestly, the only time that he brings up any fire or drums up any of that Gryffindor passion that I remember, is when we duel.” Severus waited for the young woman to place the tea tray on the table and the platter of biscuits and cheeses, allowing Minerva to smile and dismiss her before continuing. 

“During those duels, he shows that ingenuity that gives me hope. He has phenomenal reflexes, and he continues to surprise me. He adapts quickly to methods that I throw at him, even if we haven’t discussed them previously and he will never complain if he’s lost the duel or if he’s been injured. And yet,” Severus drifted off, as he watched a young man with dark brown curly hair, run by the tea shop in small runner shorts and a tightly fitted tee. “He doesn’t ask questions, even when I can see that he has them. I watch him after every duel, write his questions down in his biro, but he doesn’t come to me. Instead he researches the answers in the texts that I provide, or has Granger obtain texts for him to be sent to my home.” 

“How do you train, when you are with him?” Minerva asked him, politely. A question that he found he was ready for.

“I have been nothing if not the most pleasant that I could be. I do not wish to repeat all the drama of his Hogwarts years. I have provided him ample time to learn, I do not tower over him when he is making his potions. I do not ask him questions to see how he is thinking through his ideas. I have not pressured him in anyway, madam.” 

“Of course.” He noted that she took a sip of her tea, and barely suppressed a smile. The woman twinkled nearly as much as the bloody headmaster had. And was damn near as confusing.

“And why would he show you any fire or passion or desire to converse, if you are not showing him any of the same in return?” 

“Are you implying that I should be the man that I was when I was teaching him, madam? Or worse, are you implying that I mollycoddle him and have him feel ‘nurtured’ and ‘at ease?’” his sneer evident as any on the last four words. 

“Do not dare presume to speak to me in that tone, Severus Tobias Snape. You would do well to remember that I am the person to which you are seeking advice.” He immediately felt chastised, which was what she was going for. 

“You are correct, madam. Please explain, then, what it is that you are implying.” 

“I am implying nothing. I am clearly stating that you cannot expect him to believe that he has the ability to speak freely with you, or share his thoughts, or explore the boundaries of the arts, because you have never before allowed him such liberties. In as much as you are believing he could provide you more, he may also be unsure of how much more he should or could be willing to ask for.” 

Severus leaned back into his seat and sipped his cooling red leaf blend, and contemplated the validity of what was just said. He’d never thought that Potter wasn’t sure that he could speak freely with him. He’d never had an issue being insolent in school, but then again, Severus had always pushed the boy until he’d been able to take house points. He mulled over the fact that they’d never covered the teacher/student parameters of the Mastery bond they’d both embarked on. 

He also took a moment to note that he’d changed in the previous ten years as had Potter, but neither had sought to understand where the other had changed and to what purpose. Though, Severus could admit that he had knowledge of Potters life, that Potter was not privy to, that may have altered the way that Severus treated him. Potter had no such information to work with, and the last that they’d worked together was through sheer terror in the final moment of a battle both of them never wanted to be in and were both sure they would die as the cause of. 

He continued the afternoon with the dowager, and allowed the topics to move to other safer grounds of students that were still the same as ever and the Hogsmeade Autumnal Festival that was coming up. He found himself agreeing to appear as an extra pair of eyes for the festival that was in a little over two months. He figured it would be a good opportunity to get both Potter and himself out of his home and to use some of the tactics he’d been training, in the real world setting. 

~~**~~   
That evening found Potter home from the Weasleys early and sitting on the back patio pouring over the texts regarding the spells they’d gone over on Friday. 

“I believe I told you that Sundays were to be your off days.” Severus said, as he slipped out of the back door with two cups of tea and sat next to the man placing the cups between them on the chaise. 

“Correct, Professor. But I have our first test this week, and I didn’t want to do poorly, and some of the theory for this spell is still a little above my head.” 

Severus watched as Potter kept reading and taking notes, while speaking. “Do you not feel it adequate, the teaching that I am providing?” 

“Of course, Professor. You are the Master of the arts. I presume this is a failure on my end to understand the material. I wouldn’t wish to question your methodology.” Potter moved the cup to the left of the book and flipped the page, still not looking up, while he continued. “I had Hermione get me some extra reading, she gave it to me this afternoon while I was at the Weasley’s. This book in particular, I think, makes the theory make more sense.” He wrote down another passage, and Severus watched as he circled two parts of information and drew a line between the two chunks of writing. 

With a swift and silent spell the biro that the man had been writing on, flew to his hands and he was looking over completely sound spell theory and cognitive spellwork diagrams. “It appears that you understand perfectly well the theory of the spell.” He tamped down with anger the fact that he would have preferred Potter discuss this with him. The connections he’d made, though coming out with the correct outcome, were made with different factors than he’d have utilized to understand the linear spell design. 

“If I might have my biro back, Professor.” 

Severus very nearly smiled, he finally heard some of the fire he’d been searching for. “I think not. Discuss with me the Langronsteins Board of Connecting Fire theory.” He closed the biro in his hand with a snap and spelled the pages together. 

He couldn’t have been happier when Potter nearly growled. “I would, if you’d provide me my notes back, Professor. As I was in the midst of writing down that theory in particular, it would do neither of us any good to prove just how little I know in this moment, sir.” 

“I believe this is the perfect time to discuss. You’ve freshly studied the material, and you appear to be interested in the topic. Are you telling me that even with the information fresh on your mind, you would still not be able to coherently explain the baseline technical theory to me?” He layered a bit of a sneer in his tone, and smirked in triumph when Potter slammed his quill down on the book in front of him. 

“Langronsteins Board of Connecting Fire Theory consists of three basic principles. One, that all fire comes from a singular source. Two, that all fire is inherently dangerous and three, that all fire created must at some point be sent back to its original place of creation. LBCFT infers that all wizards must abide by a particular level of responsibility when mastering spells around fire. That we are not putting just a simple light at the tip of our wands when we speak ‘lumos’ but instead we are taking the light of the fire and utilizing it much in the way that muggles turned fire into incandescence in the late 1800s. LBCFT’s second rule appears to be the most important of all the rules, that all fire created is inherently dangerous. This instills that sense of responsibility that we must remember, that fire is neither created nor destroyed but is inherently a tool of both light and dark. We do not only use light while the room is dark, but we may not use fire when we are cold. We might shine a lumos in a dark room as much as we would in a light room when we are trying to gain another attention, conversely we may utilize a fire in the cold to keep us warm, but instead wizards have created warming charms that do the same thing without summoning fire to our hands.” Severus watched as Potter tapped his fingers against his thigh, and seemed to take a sip of the tea involuntarily, nearly spitting it out when he realized that he was still trying to be angry.

“It appears that you have a very solid understanding of Langronsteins theory. How about we test it out?” And before Potter could agree or not, Severus summoned a small flame in his palm with no words nor wand, before throwing it at the other man. 

With reflexes that he knew should no longer surprise him, and yet still did, Potter seemed to inherently understand the complex nature of summoned fire and caught the small ball of flame in the air above his own palm with no word or wand either. He stared intently at it before closing his hand and whispering a cooling charm, the fire turning blue before disappearing in a puff of cold smoke. 

“I expect you to speak with me regarding theories that are difficult for you to understand. I am your Master in this very field that you wish to be trained. It is my responsibility to make sure not that you pass a test, but that you truly understand the material on a level that goes beyond merely using the information. As such, you should feel free to speak with me, you may find that you understand the theory of a spell but a true Master will not only understand the theory, they will be able to work through all facets of the theory with another Master. This is how spells are created, their infancy is often in the midst of conversation with another.” He paused waiting for Potter to finally look him in the eye. 

“I want a 2 foot essay on how you knew to catch the fire I just threw at you. How you did so with no wand or word. Finally, what you did to turn it blue and what you think that final bit means. You will be surprised to find, I believe, that you may have come up with a new spell for cold fire that I haven’t seen before.” 

Severus got up from the chair, and summoned his tea. “You will however, not do so for the rest of the evening. Take a break and paint.” With this he entered his home and left the befuddled looking man sitting in a chair on his porch. He had rather enjoyed hearing Langronsteins theory spoken about with such passion, and found he wanted to discuss other theories with Potter when he was full of that fire. 

He brushed off the hint of something that moved along his veins, and poured himself another cup of tea before heading up to finish a few potions before putting an end to this odd day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry!! I missed the Sunday update and I have no reason. Please accept this chapter as my apology. As always Comments and Kudos are the best. xoxo Jacks


	6. Survivors Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have learned to live through the nightmares.

Harry slammed through the front door of his quarters and threw the sealed books and biros on the table. Snape had sealed them, it appeared, because he didn’t trust Harry to do as he was told. The fact that he’d tried to open the Biro after Snape had left the table, was notwithstanding.

That INFURIATING MAN! 

“How does he even know that I like to paint?” he slammed the tea kettle down, a crack slivering up the side taking the wind immediately out of his sails. “oh, mum,” he muttered, and whispered the restorative spell and the kettle sat fixed on the counter. The small porcelain kettle, a gift from Molly the year after graduating Hogwarts, it had been given to her by Lily when Arthur and Molly had gotten married, and she’d thought it was better suited to Harry. He hadn’t been able to say no. 

He calmly moved through the motions of making the tea and summoned the biscuits from the cabinet, twirling around and leaning against the surface chewing on a chocolate digestive. The painting supplies standing proudly and on full display in the front corner with dust collecting after having been unused since he got here, reminding him that Snape had been in the quarters when Harry had moved his supplies out of his chest upon entering. 

His sigh filled the room as he closed his eyes. Tonight had been the first time he’d felt like he’d been pushed. He had been struggling with the rules and their true meaning and reading them repeatedly had been building a headache rather than a foundation of understanding. 

Snape had even appreciated the way that he’d relayed all he’d learned, and saying it aloud had been all he’d apparently needed to piece some of the parts he’d been missing together. Even the practical use of the fire ball was impressive. He just wish he hadn’t lost his cool, he wanted to maintain the healthy relationship that he appeared to currently have with the Professor, and getting hot headed when pushed was not the way to do that. 

He summoned the cup of steeped tea over to the table that was next to the canvas rack, and sat down. The myriad of paints laying on the table were as colorful as they were bright and cheery. Snape wanted to have discussions with him, he wanted to sit down and discuss theory and ideology and spell work. He wanted to actually listen to him… this was everything that he wanted in a Mastery, he knew that, but fear buzzed up his spine. He’d been able to keep his crush (now a rather budding overwhelming desire) for the potions Master hidden largely in part to the very separation that he’d put between them. 

He knew that in the upcoming weeks, part of the Mastery training would circle around Occlumency and though he’d worked diligently in the last decade to build his walls up and make them firm, he knew that Snape had a way of bypassing all sense of welfare and getting at his deepest secrets. If they finally started down the path where they were possibly…friends, rather than strictly master and student, Harry wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the feelings he’d had, ferreted away in their place. 

He was unsettled. 

The sun was setting as he took out the tools to paint. Maybe he would paint, but it wouldn’t be because he had been told to do so. 

It was hours later that he stopped and noted that he had begun painting a portrait of the very man that was causing so much personal turmoil. The outline in charcoal bringing in the esoteric nose and the long lines of his neck contrasting nicely with the curved structure of the corresponding nose. He leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh. He was well and truly fucked.

~~**~~

The alarm went off and with it the panic roiled in his gut, the dust settled around him and he clawed to escape the dreamscape he felt trapped in. The stench of blood, the aftermath of venom permeating his every nerve ending, the shock of fire moving through his blood, the knowledge that this was his death. He’d never meant to cry, he’d intended to use his magic for Potter to share his mind, but he’d seen those eyes, he’d seen the boy turned man, the pig raised for slaughter, the son of a woman he’d loved and a man he’d scorned, and the tears had been unable to be stopped. He gasped and jolted upright in the cool dark room. The after effects of the reality of the dream, leaving pain in his nerves and fire in his chest.

After thoroughly washing his face, and tamping down on the nightmares that were trying to break through his mental shields, he stepped into the shower to clean the grime of past sins from his skin. The steam rose around him and the remnants of the dream faded into obscurity. The screams and the echoes of crying becoming a bad echo of a past life, one he knew he’d survived. 

The morning was slow to start, the aching of sadness lingering long after the images that had painted his mind’s eye during the night’s sleep had gone. Straining to move through the motions, he spent time focusing on each button, clasping each cufflink, drawing his hair gently and methodically through the band at the base of his neck. 

He summoned a vial of headache potion from the lab as he went down the stairs to the kitchen. Opting to wait on downing it until he’d swallowed some tea and toast. The view that awaited him however, stopped him before entering the brightly lit kitchen interior. 

Potter, passed out on the sofa his wand across his chest, and in a complete disarray of clothing, or rather the lack thereof. “Potter,” his voice was gruff, and upon hearing it he knew that he must have been screaming throughout the night. 

The man on the sofa, flew to action, wand in hand, stance low and aggressive, glasses summoned wordless and wandless from the table, sparks flying without a word. “…Potter.”

The second saying of the man’s name spoken calmly and low, appeared to do the trick. He snapped out of the post war reaction and focused on Severus. 

“Would you mind explaining, why it is that you are asleep on my sofa when you’ve perfectly good quarters that I have provided you?” He brushed by, tea was a requirement that he could no longer do without. His throat was on fire, and speaking had only brought the scorching pain to his attention. 

“You were screaming all night. The wards alerted me to your plight, however I couldn’t cross the threshold into your room without causing damage to your home.” Potter followed him, moving to the fridge to take out eggs and cheese. “You finally stopped around 3am, but I was… it was difficult to get back to sleep.” 

Severus watched as Potter moved around the kitchen, movements methodical, a resemblance to the way he’d just been upstairs alerting him to the fact that he didn’t appear to be the only person recovering from trauma. “I am a grown man, nearly 19 years your senior, Potter. I am fully capable of living through a night terror.” 

“Of course, and I wouldn’t presume you couldn’t.” 

“Then why would you feel the need to try and trespass my wards?”

He heard the sigh, and the weight of it hit Severus with force. “I do not only have experience with simple muggle night terrors. Mine were always terrifying, from childhood when I knew muggle dangers and in my teenage years when I learned the world was far darker and death was an unfortunate and inevitable side effect of sharing my mind with a mass murdering psychopath.” 

Crack eggs. Whisk mixture. Dice peppers. Count beans. Breathe in and out, in and out, in and out… 

“I still hear them. The screams of the people that died in my mind. The ones that I killed with him, or watched as he tore them limb from limb with spells, or worse, when he made his followers do it sans magic.” 

Levitate the veg into the pan. Stir the mixture. Count the stirs.

“I know what it’s like to be there, though I wasn’t. I…” 

Focus on pouring the right amount of cream. Count the tablespoons of oil. Pour on time. 

“I saw what he made you do along with all the others. I wept tears of frustration and shame. I burned with rage at my ineptitude. I witnessed more death than I have ever witnessed life.” 

Steep tea. Pour two batches of eggs and beans evenly on two plates. Count steps to table. Set up cutlery. 

“No one should be alone. No one should face the echoes of the past, when you feel like you are going to drown in the blood and the stench of death, when your screams fall silent because you’ve warded the world from knowing your shame. No one should face that alone if they don’t have to. Sometimes, our demons are not ours alone to bare.” 

Severus could hear the world wary weight of a man who had survived too much at far too early an age. Leaning up against the counter watching the methodic survival of memories that weighed too damn much. Drudging up all the mornings after, where he’d been alone and the silence of the house had been his saving grace, his tears’ hot path, still wet on his cheeks. The tea cup chattering against the saucer, as he’d focused on counting the steps up the stairs, the leaves one by one, the stir movements each as they passed. 

He would never admit to feeling as though he was alone with this burden. He’d felt lost and alone after the war, the blood on his hands had been caked on and no amount of scalding hot water had seemed to burn away the pain he’d caused others. He hadn’t ever spared a moment to think of Potter having shared a mind of the madman. 

He had known, obviously, that Potter had been privy to the Dark Lord’s thoughts, but he’d never put those two pieces of information together. He’d never spent time dwelling on just what that could mean. That the boy he’d been trying to train in Occlumency, was literally seeing the images that Voldemort had been taking glee in. 

“You say that no one should be alone, but when we set out on this contract you originally wanted to spare me the gruesome sounds of your own night terrors.” He took his cup and moved to the table, sitting across from Potter, who was staring down to his plate. 

“bloody good intentioned Gryffindors…” It was said with a smile, and before he could refrain, he chuckled at the joke. “It is in me to protect others and keep my own burdens to myself.”

“You were raised wrong. Protecting others is fine, there is no complaint there, but to do so at the detriment of your own health, leaves yourself at risk.” 

“My upbringing has nothing to do with this, Professor.”

“Cut the shit, Potter. You were raised by fools, your abuse is clear to me now as much as it should have been when I was blind to your plight during your school years. You are not a burden, your pain isn’t yours alone, and you are not to be seen not heard. You move through life quietly now, you nary say a word and you keep to yourself as though you mimic a timid mouse.” He slammed the knife down on the table, and noted with aggrieved pain, Potters flinch across the table. “Where is that Gryffindor fire that lit you so brightly when you were a student? Where is that intrepid boy that made foolish choices and went with luck and sheer tenacity?” 

“He survived a war. He lived through abuse that no child should ever be forced to bear, and he is still here. He saw people die when he relied on luck instead of listening to reason. He learned that choices made, when foolish had a much heavier weight than those made when they were thought out. He learned that though he had instinct and a fortitude of luck, he was often still found lacking and never did enough.” 

Severus tensed when those deep green eyes found his, before the other man continued. 

“That boy learned that he wanted respect but had never earned it. He wanted to be seen as a saviour in his own mind, and not the failure that he’d ultimately been on so many levels. So he grew up. He lost the passion to jump feet first into the flame, because he recognized that in so doing, others would inevitably follow to their possible demise. He learned that people’s faith is finicky and at best his chances of happily ever after was a wary chance at hope.” 

Silence rang out across the kitchen. They both sat there, neither looking away from the other, but also not truly seeing one another. It appeared that Severus had far outweighed his own actions on the growth of Potter. In so long as he allowed this worm to continue to burrow in the mind of the man sitting across from him, there would be no true mastery earned in this time together. 

“We will not be studying today.” Severus picked up his fork and knife and cut into the eggs on his plate. He took note of the warming spell that was mumbled across the table, and the steam that rose from his eggs, and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. 

“What will we be doing then, Professor?” he could hear the insolence and it gave him hope. 

“Today I am not your Professor nor am I the Master. We will get out of these four walls and we will get out of our mental spaces. Eat.” 

“Yes – “ Severus watched as Potter appeared to struggle with something. “When we signed the contract, you wrote in a codicil that I must refer to you in any tone, context or in the appearance of others, as Professor or Master Snape.” 

The scroll appeared on the table between them, and opened to the amendment that Potter was referring. With some simple updates, Severus re-signed and moved to Potter for his signature. 

“… moving forward, Harry James Potter is authorized to refer to me as Severus when outside of training or in friendly pursuit of conversation. During training, in the company of others in a training capacity, or in pursuit of educational gain, Harry James Potter will continue with the title of Professor, Master or Sir.” He watched as Potter signed with little flourish, and put the rest of the eggs on his toast and ate. Getting up and putting the dishes in the sink to wash themselves. 

“Get dressed, and please… moving forward, if you feel the urge to save me from myself, do so with a shirt or trousers on. You’re very nearly a distraction.” He left the kitchen and went to the lab, he had some things to do before they made their way out into the world today, and one of them was cool his blood. The sight of pale toned abs, and dimples at the base of Potters spine were images he’d rather have never laid eyes upon. For having seen them, he knew he’d never be able to ignore their burned visage from his mind.

~~**~~

Potter appeared at the front door at 0700 in fitted black slacks and a charcoal grey button up, cuffed at the forearm. His loafers were the only part of the ensemble that appeared to have been previously worn, and a small part of Severus realized that Potter had purchased fine clothing before appearing on his door step, all those weeks prior. 

“What are we doing today…” the pause was small, before he’d added, “Severus.” 

The spark of awareness that centered in his chest and meandered down his spine, left him without air for a moment. It had been far too long for an attractive man to have his name on their lips. He shook the thought from his mind, choosing instead to focus on the question that had been presented. 

“We are going to the market, and from there we shall see. I need some potions supplies, but also it might do us both some good to see and experience humanity. Too much of solitude isolates us from the knowledge that the outcome of the war, was in fact a positive one.” With that last remark he moved forward and opened the door, waiting for Potter to take his leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Sunday night!! School starts tomorrow, so I will be missing an upload tomorrow, but will hopefully do it on Tuesday. I wrote this chapter from personal experience of dealing with PTSD. I hope it doesn't trigger anyone. Comments and Kudos always welcome. xoxo Jacks


	7. Common Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small trip to get your mind together can ease the passage of time.

Ch. 7  
Harry was struggling to keep focus on anything but Snapes toned, tight arse in those fitted grey slacks he’d chosen to wear. As much as he wanted to pay attention to the ingredients conversation that Snape was having with the trader at the market, he inevitably found his attention straying to the arch of the man’s arse where the thick round curve met the toned upper thigh. 

He kept repeating over and over again, the parting remark the man had made this morning after his outburst. He’d said he was a distraction and had said so while referring to his lack of dress. He felt the faint heat rise up in his cheeks as he contemplated the level of distraction that he was, and if it was a good one. He looked up trying to get some air in his lungs and cool his heated face, and noticed that the shop-keep was looking at him with a smirk which caused him more embarrassment, he had to get away, if only for a moment. 

“I’m going over… there.” He said, vaguely pointing in a direction opposite of where he was currently. He had to move away, he had to get away from the man that was a distraction to his mental state. It had been nearly 2 months, and he’d not once let on that he was attracted to Snape, and he wasn’t going to do so now, if he had anything to say on the matter. 

He didn’t wait for a response, choosing instead to trust that Snape had been genuine in letting them both escape and be in the crush of humanity. They’d apparated from Snapes front garden and had landed in what appeared to be a large warehouse in Ireland. The throngs of people speaking in Gaelic or with an Irish lilt, provided him with a lighthearted joy that he hadn’t recognized he’d been missing. 

Passing by stall after stall of pork pies, curry, candied apples, and cinnamon delight, he found himself standing in front of a stall laden with chocolates of all types. From Oranged chocolate, to strawberries dipped in dark semi-sweet, his gaze travelled along the table, landing on several small mixed chocolates in the shape of gemstones and leaves. “How much for the lot of these then?” He asked, the smile on his lips as wide as any he’d sported in weeks. 

“Ahh, the Fanciful Selection, eh?” the short, round, red cheeked woman stood from her stool and set her knitting down. He gave her a once over and immediately loved her. “That there’d be 5 Euro, lad.” Harry dug into his pocket and pulled out 6 placing it on the woman’s outstretched hand. “Take the extra for my appreciation of your talents.” He winked and picked up the small purple sack, noting with glee the pouch felt heavy in his hand. 

“Aye, lad, a good one you are. How about this then, in return for such good manners.” He watched her lean down to the other side of the table and pick up a small green candy, handing it to him. “This here is a sugared toad.” He smiled as she leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. “It isn’t really a toad, but if you let this particular sweet sugar coat your throat, you will be burping in minutes, worth the laugh, my lad!” She cackled and he found he couldn’t resist laughing with her. He added the sweet to his pouch and said his thanks before pocketing the lot and moving on. 

There were so many small trinkets on display. Everywhere he looked there were wind chimes, dream catchers, old toys, stately glass lamps; each thing beautiful and intricately made. He was in awe that so many muggles were talented like this and yet the magical lot still considered them inferior. He wondered at selling his own paintings in a forum like this, away from the throngs of people that would buy his art because his name was on it, and instead because they thought it worth the cost. 

He was intently staring at a portrait of a lion, done in a cacophony of colors in what appeared to be watercolor, when a pair of loafers he recognized appeared next to him. 

“Are you really so taken with the king of the jungle?” he heard the smirk in Snapes tone, and found himself amused at being so transparent. 

“You know, I hadn’t given it that much thought. The piece itself is exemplary, much in that, had I seen a Snake done in the same manner, I might have even found that interesting.” He smiled and looked up, the air leaving his lungs before he could even breathe. 

A halo of golden light filtered behind Snapes head, framing the stray silken black strands that were hanging loose from a bun that was at the crown of the man’s skull. He looked ethereal and striking in a way that Harry had never seen before. He was lost for a full moment in the picture of masculine excellence, before another patron strode between the window and the man in front of him, breaking the spell. 

“Ehmm, right, well… I think it’s time for a snack, do you know what part of Ireland we are in?” he asked and moved back a foot, he needed space from such temptation. 

“We are in Belfast, Northern Ireland.” Snape eyed him, and Harry smiled, yes he knew now where they were. 

“Ahhh, perfect. I know the best place that we can go for a bit of tea and some scones.” He strode past Snape and into the cool midmorning late summer air. Cleaning his senses of the cobwebs that had gathered, and finding it easier to move beyond the ‘ethereal Snape moment’ he’d just experienced. 

What a disaster that had nearly been. 

~~**~~

 

The beautiful jut of land off the coast of Dublin called Howth, was a land unlike any he’d ever seen. The magic that muggles so often sought, layered deep in the soil beneath. The ground full of a riotous display of flowers, greenery, and life. The docks and the market that capped the island where the trained stopped allowed for the first glimpse of the peace and serenity to be felt. And if the visitor took their time, they could find much more in the lands givings. The small tea shop was nestled between a fancy steak restaurant and a well-known coffee shop for muggles. Harry walked in and sat down in the corner, smiling at the lovely young woman behind the counter as she noted him and his companion and smiled as she placed his regular order. 

“They have a wonderful rose and chamomile tea. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you generally err on the side of darker teas, but do me the favor of trying this one, before you insist on your standard cuppa?” 

Harry smiled and said his hellos to the girl, Georgiana, who brought the kettle and the cups to their table, before turning to Snape across the table. He looked very nearly absurdly out of place in the tea shop. It was rather designed much in the manner of a ladies tea room, small to the point of cramped, and the porcelain didn’t match, there were doilies on every spare bit of table, and the chairs had feminine fabric of a variety of shades, colors and patterns. However, their tea was fastidiously the best that Harry’d ever had, and he was excited to share this with the usually straight laced and overwhelmingly masculine man he’d come with. 

He poured them both a cup and gently blew on his to cool it the old fashioned way, noting that Snape went for the subtle cooling charm before taking his own sip. Harry wasn’t disappointed. The first taste of the rose chamomile blend is always a punch to the gut. The two flavors generally are gentle and soft, but the blend in particular makes them potent, and at first touch to the tongue, it very nearly feels like a field of wild flowers bursts to life in your mouth. 

He sipped his own, closing his eyes to savor the flavor while waiting for the verdict. 

“Passable. It isn’t a strong cup of English Breakfast, but it would do for a cool midmorning tea such as this.” 

“Better than I expected you to give it.” Harry smiled and kept all further comments to himself. He didn’t want to push their tenuous new steps in a bad direction. But he did make eye contact with the girl behind the counter, who noted the his own small smile and beamed before bringing out some biscuits to their table.

~~**~~

Severus took in the look of a calm and sated Potter across the table; the verdant emerald eyes of the lean man looking out on the fisherman’s shore while a porcelain cup rested against his lips and a smile etched its way across the generally stoic face. Getting out had indeed been what both of them had needed. He was sure that he’d be okay for 12 months, holed up in his home with Potter traipsing about, but of course as all things were with the slip of a man, his original assumptions had been wrong. 

Severus contemplated all that they’d accomplished in the previous 2 months, and knew that in order to assist Potter in getting the full scope of the needed requirements of an internship for mastery, they had much to do to catch up. With the new scope of the contract, and the steps they’d made, he was sure that they’d get where they needed to be. 

His concern however, lay in the fact that the next big part of the curriculum was Occlumency. Their last attempt had been dreadful to say the least. They’d both dug up memories that had been painful and harmful to the other, and they’d both been rather bestial in the way they’d moved through the mind of the other. He knew that they were in a much better place than they’d been back then, but it wasn’t the aggression that he was worried about. 

Severus knew things about Potter, that Potter didn’t know Severus knew, and the very act of building walls to shield your mind was difficult in and of itself when you were doing it only to protect your own interests. However, to build walls to protect the person that was attacking them, was a finely honed art that he wasn’t sure he possessed to the degree he would need. 

He knew that the topic of Potters upbringing would have to come up in the time that the man was staying with him. He’d hoped however, that they’d have built up a repertoire that could withstand the degree of trust that it would appear had been broken. Potter would learn that Severus knew of his childhood, knew in fact the darkest parts of his childhood and not only this, but that Minerva, the woman that he’d trusted as a boy who had just survived a war, had been the woman to share that information with him. 

He only hoped that he could broach the topic in the best light possible. The rub was, he didn’t know in what way that was. 

~~**~~

Severus was very nearly as exhausted as he’d ever been. The door to his home had never looked so inviting. After a long day cliff walking in Howth, and going to shop after shop for small things and knickknacks that neither of them ultimately bought, Harry had treated him to a fine steak and salmon dinner at a beautiful restaurant while the sun had set on the water. They’d discussed the ministries restrictions on plants and what it meant for potions. Why the ministry seemed hellbent on banning plants that would help witches that were pregnant, and why they seemed perfectly fine with plants for male fertility. 

It had been a splendid evening and the conversation had opened him to the knowledge that Potter was a willing and rather vocal conversationalist. His views were well thought out, and when Severus had said something controversial to get a reaction, instead of going off on a tangent, the man had instead asked genuine questions to get to the root of the comment made. It had been years since Severus had held such an in-depth conversation and had found the meal passed far too quickly for his taste. 

This didn’t stop his nerves in his neck, arms and back from being on fire. It had been a fair bit too much activity and though he’d known the possibility, he’d still left his cane at home. A small part of him, that he rather found himself ignoring stoutly, admitted that he hadn’t brought his cane because he hadn’t wanted to seem weak in front of Potter. Though now, he could admit that he’d kill willingly for a strong cup of tea and to sit down for a week. 

They entered his home, and Potter immediately went to the kitchen, the smell of the burner heating up alerting Severus to the fact that the other man was already in the same state of mind. He looked the stairs and found that he truly didn’t think he’d be able to get up them alone and all the fears and doubts and incriminations of weakness filled his mind. He was going to have to ask for assistance getting to his rooms after their shared tea. He was sure that Potter was not going to boast of glee at his pain, but the man had hidden deeply his weaknesses for nearly 20 years, the very thought of sharing them with an ex mortal enemy, made the prospect terrifying. 

~~**~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy... there is something fun in the next chapter so keep a keen eye! As always, I love your comments and kudos and you are amazing readers. xoxo Jacks
> 
> If you've never been to Ireland, I highly recommend it. My best friend of the last 15 years lives there now and it's been life altering to visit them. Howth was everything I could have ever wanted in an Irish sea side village, and I look forward to settling my feet on that land again.


	8. A Helping Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small gesture of acceptance can go a long way

Ch. 8  
After a rather pleasant wind down to their day, and two cups of strong tea later, Severus knew that he was postponing the inevitable. He mentally berated himself and took a final breath. 

“Two weeks from now, I will be chaperoning a Hogsmeade trip for the fall festival. You are more than welcome to come. It will take up nearly the whole of the Saturday.” He stopped and summoned the tea to top up his cup. “We can either move your regular break of Sunday to the Saturday, or you may come with me and I can do some field training with you, and you can take your Sunday as normally scheduled.”

“I believe I would like to do some field training. I enjoyed the tactical conversation and bit of training you provided on the rocky path by the cliffs today.” 

“Very well then, I will let Minerva know that you will be coming with, so the students will be properly chastised to stay away from their overwhelming hero worship.”

He smirked at the small laugh that escaped the other man across the table, and then took a deep fortifying breath.

“I will need assistance getting to my rooms.” He said quietly, as Potter stood to wash the kettle and cups in the sink. 

“Alright, let me set these to dry, and I will help you. Just a moment.” 

Severus sat there in a state of annoyed shock. No questions about why, no insinuations that he was weak, no pity in the tone. Nothing. And though this was exactly what he would have demanded when being treated regarding his nerve damage, he found himself rather ostensibly annoyed by Potters distinct lack of care. 

“So quick to help the infirm then?” the edge in his voice the only hint at his self-deprecating thoughts. 

“If you wish for me to be a trollop about assisting you, or wish for me to act like I’ve not been a witness to your limp or the fact that you’ve spent the last 4 hours favoring your right side then you’ll have to tell me. As it is, I’ve been waiting for you to summon a walking stick or ask for assistance. You haven’t, but I wasn’t sure how you would get up three flights of stairs, and was going to more than likely make up an excuse to follow you up them, to make sure you made it, anyhow.” Potter finished wiping down the saucers and cups and placed them on the drying rack before turning. “bloody good intentioned Gryffindors, I believe you called it?” the smile was there, but it neither held pity nor amusement for his ailment, he found himself mentally chastising his own false assumptions about the younger man, yet again.

“At some point, you will have to admit that I am not the insolent child that you once favored placing blame on, and learn that I genuinely innately care about others in my life.” Potter moved forward and stuck his arm out looking down with a stern if rather congenial smile. “Is it from Nagini’s bite?” 

Severus took the proffered arm and let go of what little self-possessed, if in this moment misplaced, dignity he had. Potter was right. The man was being a gentleman and apparently had been for a good portion of the day, and to accost him at this point, would be a poor way to thank him for the fact he was going to have to help him regardless. 

“Yes, and if Longbottom in all his infinite glory hadn’t killed the bloody blight on my life, I would do so willingly every day for the rest of my natural existence.” He muttered a curse on the general after life of the intrepid snake, and growled when Potter giggled. Actually giggled.

“Are you laughing at me?” 

“At your pain? Absolutely not. At the vitriol you have against a creature that’s been dead for nearly as long as it was alive… maybe. Or the fact that I believe beneath all that vehemence might have been a snidely worded acknowledgement of Neville’s assistance, that as well. That was a pretty inventive curse you just mumbled under your breath. I believe it was something about the penis size of a snake, which brings far more questions than answers to my mind.” 

Severus could hear the chuckle in Potters tone and found himself smiling along with the joke. The stairs were much more bearable with assistance, and he knew that the hardest part would be at the top, because he was going to have to ask for not so minor assistance with getting into his rooms. He’d never rekeyed his personal wards before, and the act of doing so, he felt, was incredibly intimate in a way he’d never expected. 

They reached the landing of the lab, and he worked up enough energy to summon a pain potion from the long cabinets along the far wall. 

“Have you eaten enough for that?” 

“I should be fine, the steak at dinner was large and I am still full. This will not be imbibed though. If you will look,” he handed Potter the vial to study. “This variant is a bright orange color. This is a pain potion for mixing in the bath, not for internal digestion. I will however, need further assistance once we’ve made it to my personal quarters.” He hesitated, and pushed through the excruciating nausea as a jolt of pain went from his neck down through his arm and lower back. 

“I rarely find myself in this level of pain, and most of the time when I am getting to this point I stop the activities leading there, and I am fine. As of right now, I do not think that I can summon enough strength to help me with my nightly ablutions.” 

“No problem, what is it that you are going to need me to assist with?” 

He heard a faint breathiness to Potters voice, but left it, as he was probably tired out from nearly carrying him up the steps. 

“I know that this may seem most improper, and if I could spare you I would do so, please believe me. However, I will need assistance getting into the bath. Once I am in there you will be free to go, as I will be bathing in the pain potion and this will ease the pain and allow me the freedom of movement that I need to get on with the rest of my evening.” He finished and waited in baited silence as they reached the threshold to his personal room. 

“That is fine. I know that I cannot get into your room however, so you will have to key me in at least this once, so that I can assist you.” 

Severus moved his hand up to the door and said an incantation, noting out of the corner of his eye, Potters cheeks turning a dark shade of red and he appeared to be deeply breathing in and out. Not being able to come up with a rational reason for this reaction, he figured it was the exertion of the day taking its toll as well on the other man, and vowed to make the next few moments as painless as possible for the both of them. 

“Please put your hand to the door and state your name and title as my pupil.”

Harry’s hand went next to his own, and their thumbs touched, causing a small fissure of awareness to move up his arm, seemingly warming him from his hand to his chest. 

“Harry James Potter, Pupil to the esteemed Master of both Potions and Defense, Severus Tobias Snape.”

“Well that was rather fanciful, wasn’t it?” Severus said and they both shared a chuckle as the rooms opened to them both. Potters arm immediately swung back around his waist and he moved them both forward. “Where shall I stick you then?” 

“You are not ‘sticking’ me anywhere you infernal child. You will be helping me undress and what I daresay hope, is gently assisting me into the tub.” 

He watched as Potters cheeks again turned a deep and rather becoming shade of pink and laughed. “Alright then, let us be on. I’ve had the right urge to use the loo for an hour now.” Severus heard the breathiness and found he was stumped. 

“Are you alright, you appear to be a bit breathless and though I know I am not light, I don’t figure assisting me up the stairs should cause you to be asthmatic.” 

The coughing fit nee laugh that escaped from the man whose arm was currently wrapped around him, added nothing but confusion to the already incredibly odd situation he was in. 

“It’s nothing. Just… ah, been a bit since I’ve seen a bloke without clothing on. Part of the contract and all, no personal relations while, ah, in training and all that.” 

Severus’ head had never moved so fast in all his life. He had never thought that Potter could be gay. That he’d be putting the other man in such a situation like this, would have been in poor taste had been straight, but now it seemed downright improper. “If you wish to not assist me, I will understand completely. I had no awareness that you were of that persuasion. I would not ever presume to put you in a position in which you are most uncomfortable.” 

“Why would being straight make this any less odd?” Potter leaned him against the counter and took a step back, putting his hands on his hips in much a way a mother would looking at a recalcitrant child. “Are you discomfited by my attraction to men?” 

“That would be rather disingenuous of me, wouldn’t it?” 

He saw the moment that Potter took his meaning, and the pink color rose again to his cheeks. He noted the man closing his eyes, and taking several deep breaths before opening them and firming his features. 

“Alright, let us be on with it.” 

And with that, Potter started waving his wand and avoiding eye contact as if the very act of doing so would be the only way to get through the night. The water in the bath started to fill, two towels were accio’d to the heating rack, and the man assisted him to the stool by the bath. His hands quickly on his shoes as he undid the laces and slipped them from his feet, taking his socks off slowly so that he didn’t jolt any particular part of Severus. 

“It’s the left side, you don’t have to move as if I am china, but a fair bit of warning on the left side is all I am asking.”

“Fine.” 

Potter stood him up and leaned him against the counter again, and at this point they both stood there a moment before the next step. Severus closed his eyes, and started itemizing the recipe for making his variant of dreamless sleep, noting that as soon as his eyes closed, Potter mumbled something, and Severus found that he was completely naked to the eye of the other man. 

He kept his eyes closed a moment more before opening them to assess the situation. Potter had moved a towel to levitate around Severus’ midriff before spelling his clothing away. At that moment he’d never known such a respect for another person. It swelled within him so soundly he was nearly overcome. Potter wrapped the towel securely around his waist before assisting him to the claw foot tub. 

“It might be easier if I lift you over the lip. I hadn’t realized you’d owned a clawfoot tub. It’s a fair bit higher than I was expecting.” 

Severus rather thought he agreed and though he knew that this was purely a situation of inconvenience to them both, he found his heart rate kick up at the prospect of being held by the other man. 

“That is acceptable.” 

The next thing he knew, Potter had him in a maiden hold, his knees cradled gently and the other arm holding his back firmly and securely. He was concerned when the towel would be removed and when the moment of abject impropriety would occur, but as in all things, Potter surprised him in this as well. 

With a small gasp, the man bent to his knees and placed him in the tub, the towel still firmly wrapped around his waist as he was placed beneath the water. The water at the perfect temperature and his dignity and privacy intact, he knew that this had been another moment to alter their already evolving relationship. What had already been bordering between a work based relationship had been teetering to a mutual acquaintances, and now moved even closer to something akin to friendship. 

“Do you need any further assistance?” 

“No, no this will be fine.” 

Potters arm was still under his upper back and he slowly moved it out from beneath him, his slow deep breaths the only thing confounding Severus. He’d felt Potters muscles and knew that he’d not been so heavy as to cause the man discomfort. 

“Alright then, If you need me, send your patronus. Do not hesitate. At this point, any hesitation would seem rather remiss. I will be off.” 

And though Severus would never tell a soul, and he would never admit to seeing it. He hadn’t looked away quick enough and Potter hadn’t adjusted his trousers just yet. It was really not his fault that he’d seen such a large protrusion at the apex of Potters thighs before he’d turned and left the bathroom. It took a moment, but it all started to make unerring sense. 

Severus found that he had a might bit more to ponder than he’d expected to while in his bath.

~~**~~

Harry very nearly ran down the stairs. He had just a few dozen meters between him and his bathroom, where he could release the built up energy in complete privacy. He’d just bared witness to nearly the entire naked body of Severus Snape, exhibit A to Zed on his fantasies and dirtiest dreams list. The man was like chiseled marble. Long, lean, firm and toned. Naked but for the towel that he’d thought to place at the last moment to leave Snape some dignity, he’d seen the rest of the man in resplendent glory. 

Six foot and scarred, he looked like an ancient Roman statue of a god that had lived through war and still held all the beauty of the original maker. He pushed through the door of his quarters, and banished his clothes before he even entered his bathroom. With a flick of his wrist the water was on and he was under it. The cool temperature bringing his blood from a boil to a more tolerable throbbing ache. 

He’d held Snape. In his arms. He’d seen the scars that traced their way up the path of his legs to the bottom of the towel and he’d wanted to drag his tongue down from the man’s scarred and beautiful neck to his navel. He’d never wanted for something so much in his life as in that moment. 

He very well might be in love with Severus Snape. The man who he was currently training under. The man who up until just recently he’d only been allowed to call Professor, Master, or Sir. 

He was so fucked.

~~**~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finally finished editing all that I have written, but I have so much more that I want to write. I hope to be able to fit in some writing time this weekend between homework, thank goodness for holidays. I hope you all like the little treat, and a snippet of that forward momentum for our boys. 
> 
> As always your comments inspire me to keep going. 
> 
> xoxo Jacks


	9. A Crossing of Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we learn that sometimes our words mean things but so does the context.

Ch. 9  
The bone wary feeling had given way to calm relaxation shortly after the water had covered his body. That night he’d slept as soundly as he’d remembered doing in, well ever, and he was both confused and intrigued by the fact that he hadn’t woken with the start and normal paranoia that he normally did. 

Severus looked himself over in the mirror and studied his reflection. He didn’t find himself to be a particularly attractive man, but he was drastically better off than when he’d been in the peak of the war. The two stone he’d put on, the color in his cheeks, the ability to experiment and formulate a better shampoo had caused him to look like a better weathered man. But he would never go so far as to say ‘attractive’. He harrumphed and finished cuffing his sleeves, before leaving the bathroom for the bedroom door. He passed through and thought of the night before where he’d altered his wards to allow Potter in. He shook his head and made to move to the kitchen, he would just alter the wards back to their original state, later on.

He had to forgo shoes today, as the nerve damage was still sending minor shocks through his toes, but overall he was in rather better spirits than he’d honestly expected. He summoned his cane before leaving the room, remembering the tone of derision from Potter the night previously, where he’d noted that Severus had been limping and hadn’t used his walking stick. 

The smell of coffee and cinnamon wafted up the stairs, and a small smile hit his face unbidden. 

“You’ve decided to take up cooking as a full time responsibility then? Have you always had aspirations to become a house elf?” He said as he entered the room. Moving over to the tea pot and noticing that it’d already been started. 

“I started the kettle around the time I figured your alarm went off. The water should be perfectly steeped at this point. Don’t ever let Hermione hear you speak with such a tone of amused disregard about house elves, Sir.” Potter moved from the counter to the oven and took out a pan of cinnamon biscuits that quite literally made Severus’ mouth water. “And as for cooking; I was planning on studying this morning, but I settled for breakfast.” 

If Severus noted the upraised brow of the younger man, out of the corner of his eye, he would never tell. He poured his tea and made for the table. “I set out the Prophet. ‘Mione sends it to me, and I figured you’d like to see page 6.” 

Severus took up the paper, while sounds of early morning cooking took place around him. His tea, a perfectly steeped cup of English Breakfast, and the toast that was waiting to settle his stomach as he waited for more, made for a rather pleasing tableau. 

The Golden Boy Studies Under Esteemed War Hero and Potion Master  
We have obtained first hand breaking news, that Harry James Potter, Hero of the Wizarding War and Golden Boy has taken his internship for the Defense Against the Dark Arts Mastery, under a one, Severus Tobias Snape. 

Though little can be confirmed as to how the two are getting on, our sources let us know that they are working together tolerably, and that Mr. Potter is well on his way to completing the last step between being a pupil and a becoming master in the field. 

We are looking forward to the news of this great feat, and will bring you more on this as we learn of it. 

He felt the sneer on his face, before he could school his features to something more calm. “How do you think they found out?” 

“Well it wasn’t a secret in so far as I was aware. It could really have been anyone.” He watched as Potter placed porridge and sausage on the table and a rasher of beans before bringing the cinnamon biscuits to the table and sitting down. “Was it supposed to be a secret? I mean, I did tell my family – sorry, the Weasleys… and I am pretty sure Minerva is aware as she is the one that set us up. I- I – I mean, set this up.” 

The blush was there again, and though Severus wanted to explore the reason for it, he left it for now. “No, it wasn’t a secret. I just don’t generally appreciate my business being out for fodder in the local rag.” 

“Well, for that then I am sorry. It is my lot in life.” He heard the heaviness to the words, and decided to let them settle while he made his plate. “If it does truly bother you, I can put the Weasleys under oath to not talk about anything, and we can add an addendum to the contract to make you more comfortable.” 

“That shall hardly be necessary, as first of all the information has already been presented to the press. You speaking freely with your family, and trusting them to not tell the press, is not something I intend to hamper. It has just,” he smeared jam on the biscuit as he mulled his words over. “been a while since I was in the news, and even though they painted me in a friendly light, it does not mean that others seeing my name will take it as such.” He contemplated people and their odd ways of taking information in and reactions. 

“No one will ever hurt you again.” 

He looked up and directly into the burning green eyes of the man across the table. The man that he was teaching a mastery to, but was far more superior in a number of ways to him in magic. For once, Severus almost believed that he’d be safe.

“You cannot assure me that, in as much as you cannot assure your family will always be safe or that the world will go on tomorrow.” He took a bite of the biscuit, and allowed himself a small groan. “However, I can assure you that these biscuits are some of the best I’ve ever had, if that is any consolation.” He offered up a smile, and was pleased when he received a chuckle in return. 

“Now, I was thinking things over last night after you left, and I’ve come to some conclusions about the restrictions we placed in the contract.” He waved his hand for the contract to appear and took note of the peaked expression on Potters face before continuing. “You stated very clearly that you hadn’t been with anyone since we started this contract, and though I can say your studies have been good, I am sure that allowing you some time to frolic as it were, once a month, with possible suiters, would not hinder your studies.” He stopped and chewed a bit before continuing, “You seem to genuinely be seeking education and as such, I think a little leeway could be arraigned.” 

“You want me to date, while I am training for my Defense Mastery?” 

“I believe that telling you that you cannot do so, while you are training, was rather more than I should have done.” 

“You want me to go out, and date around, while living here and learning about Defense and Potions under you?” 

“I am not sure why you continue to ask, as if you do not understand the common English language. I am stating that nearly as clearly as I can.” 

He paused, and continued to eat, he figured Potter would get around to what he wanted to say eventually, and the sausage and biscuits really were too good to let go cold. 

“I am fine with the contract as it is. It wasn’t like I wasn’t living the life of celibacy before the contract was created. Doing it for a while longer won’t really be a matter.” 

He was steadfastly looking at his plate, but Severus could see the pink color sweeping up to the cheeks and figured he’d try one more thing to see what direction this would go. “That seems reasonable, however, should you feel stifled in any way toward that regard please feel free to speak openly. I do believe that at least some time can be set aside occasionally for frivolous acts of youth. Though I would ask, do you mind if I step out while you are doing personal study Saturday night, I have a previous arraignment that I need to attend.” 

Potters jaw clenched, and Severus watched him work through the emotions to calm himself, and with a clarity he could scarcely credit, knew that his assumptions from the previous night were not unfounded. 

“Do you wish to update the contract regarding me dating, so as we might update the contract for yourself as well? Do you have a date that you would like to bring around?” Severus nearly cracked his neck with the force of following Potter as he stood up so abruptly. “That is fine, I will make myself scarce. I can go to the Weasleys Saturday night, and just send an owl on Sunday when your paramour has left.” Before Severus could utter a word, or try to sway the conversation back to safe and friendly territory, the contract burned a bright gold and he watched as Potter signed with a flourish. 

“The contract has been updated, as I was the one that requested you do not date while we were under training, it should be within magical law that I am updating the contract per your request. Please sign at your earliest convenience. I will go finish getting ready for the day.”

Severus watched in mounting frustrated horror, as Potter magicked his plates clean, banishing most of the food that had yet to be eaten, and the dishes to the sink with nary a flick of his wrist. “I will be studying until 0700 and will be at your lab on time. Have a good morning, Professor.” And with that he watched Potter walk calmly out of the kitchen, shut the door with hardly a schnick, and with that sound the possibility of a common ground appeared to crumble to dust. 

~~**~~

 

The week had been utterly exhausting, it was as if the previous Sunday and Monday had been an aberration. Potter never referred to him as Severus again, and he didn’t come to him when he had questions, as he’d suggested he do. They nearly sparred every day both verbally and physically but beyond the actual scope of the lessons, they didn’t share anything else. 

Severus was very close to losing his last shred of late gained patience on the impertinent man he was training. Saturday morning rolled around, and with it their final lesson before the Mental Shields training that would begin on Monday. It was like so many weights that were hanging around both of their necks. 

Severus could hardly credit breathing through all the tension in the air when they were together. Though he’d meant to clear up the mistaken offer that had fallen rather flat the previous Monday, as the week had worn on, the prospect of being rid of the tension was appealing, and with Saturday here, he was both relieved and frustrated that he would be alone that evening. 

He scribbled off a missive to the Headmistress and supposed that regardless of if she replied, he would be sans Potter for the evening and there was nothing he would be able to do about it. 

He walked his apprentice through the Blood Replenisher Potion that he’d adapted and again took note that Potters potion came out accurate. Though the man scribbled so many notes, that he was sure he’d been thinking of changes, questions, updates and adaptations that he’d no doubt speak with Granger on instead of him. 

“We are done. You can leave whenever you wish. Clean up your cauldron before seeing yourself out.” He said, slamming his stirring rod down next to his own pewter cauldron not looking at the other man. He was too angry and absurdly disappointed to be able to make eye contact just then. 

“As you wish, Professor.” 

There was a small part of him that enjoyed the tone of unrepentant insolence that vibrated so completely from the other man. He had missed that spark, he had missed the fire that had burned so brightly in the young man. The issue was, that with that burn, Potter became attractive in a way that Severus hadn’t previously been aware of. Though if he was completely honest, and he could be only with himself, he’d known that Potter was attractive. In the same way that a bee might see a cactus flower and note it’s beauty, but may also be wary of collecting its nectar for the prick of the thorn. 

Severus was never one to be so blinded by beauty, that he’d risk the sting of rejection. 

And yet, there had been that night, the moment in the bath, where he’d been at his most weak, and he’d seen something in Potters that hinted the rejection wouldn’t be there. He had just played his cards wrong, and here they were. Farther back from where they’d even started. 

He stayed looking at his potion while he heard his apprentice clean his space thoroughly and without magic in the custom of a potions lab. He moved to the next stage of his own potion, noting that he was completely working on experience and no actual thought. His mind too preoccupied with how absurdly bizarre and frustrating this entire situation had become. 

A great black owl tapped on the glass of his front window, and before he had a moment to take in the options, Potter snapped his fingers and the Owl was in the lab, and setting on the perch in the farthest corner of the lab, so as to avoid feathers and debris getting into a potion in error. 

“I have cleaned my station. I will be leaving shortly for the Weasleys, please send word when you are clear for me to return tomorrow. They won’t have an issue should I need to stay until Monday.” And with that completely professional statement, Potter left the lab and calmly shut the door behind him. 

It was the calm in his door shutting that both irritated Severus to the ends of the Earth, and impressed him beyond measure. To be so clearly angry, and to have grown so much that one didn’t show their anger through outbursts of violent aggression was something that he would never not be impressed by. 

With a click of his tongue the owl flew to his shoulder, and he took the missive from her long taloned foot. Slipping her some dry bacon from the bowl on the edge of the table, he watched her fly out again through the open window before he magicked it closed again. 

 

“Dearest Severus, 

Poppy, Pomona and Filius are planned for dinner this evening. I have informed the elves that you will be joining the festivities. Though the question begs to be asked, why you are free on a Saturday evening, when Sundays are the day that Harry is not being trained. 

I am sure all will be answered in due recourse. Be here no later than 1700, we can have a private chat over tea before the others arrive.

Cheers,   
HdMstrs. Minerva”

He knew that he’d have to speak about the situation he was currently in, and he was loathe to admit that, though it was entirely his fault for being in the middle of a drama with Potter; Minerva may well be his only answer to getting out of it. He penned his response, gathered some potions that he’d be able to bring for Poppy and Scotch he was sure Filius and Pomona would enjoy, and made to finish the rest of his potions he’d have to brew for sales. 

He was already annoyed with the silence of the lab. As he moved to clear the contents of his table, he noted that Potter had left his biro and pad on the table where he worked. It was with a common regard for checking the work of his student and nothing more that moved his feet before he thought of the pretense of privacy. He flicked his wand and the pad opened to the most recent notes, 

“…wonder if the dust of a phoenix would or could be utilized in altering the replenisher to help light creatures?”

“…conversely, wonder would could be added to help Vampyres and Werewolves, with blood loss…”

“… edible versions in sweets like chocolate to be given to people adversely effected by Dementors?”

“…grey looks good on him… long toes, should sketch the arches of his feet. His eyes are not black, need to get brown to mix in with the black for the oil…”

“can a powder formulation be made for easier transport of the potion that could be altered when needed for liquid digestion?”

He took the notes and transcribed them on the blackboard that was on his long wall by his desk, moving his wrist back and forth, and notably leaving the comments about art off. These were incredibly well founded thoughts, and deserved research. 

As did the idea that he looked good in grey, as the only grey he’d been wearing today was the grey slacks he allowed his mind to mull over the fact that this rather came off that his arse looked good, and that his eyes apparently weren’t black, and whatever art piece that the man had been referring to…

Severus left the lab with a lighter feeling, he had some idea of what he wanted and needed to do in the coming weeks to work towards the ultimate goal of Potters Mastery. 

~~**~~

“Hermione, you weren’t there. It was obvious. He must have been put off by the whole situation from the night before.” Harry tossed the snitch in the air, and watched the kids run around the garden chasing after it after the wings sprouted and it flitted from bush to bush. 

“I mean, I would have to give him credit, at least he tried to open the contract for us both.”

“Does that really sound like the man that we know? If he really wanted some time with a paramour, to my mind he would have been considerate enough to break the contract on a Sunday when it didn’t matter.” She put a cushioning charm under one of the kids that was climbing a tree to get to the snitch. “To me, he is Slytherin enough to break the contract if there was someone he was seeing, but too Slytherin to show his hand and allow you the same freedom.” 

“’Lo, Harry, didn’t expect to see you on a Saturday!” Ron came around the hedges with George and Charlie in tow. “Aya, Harry was kicked out of the house –“ 

“Ronald!” Hermione stopped her husband from spilling information that he’d been sworn to keep private. 

“Oh, right. Well anyway, he’s here, what do ya say to a quick match in the meadow?” 

George started laughing followed quickly by the rest of the group, “You are the bloody worst at keeping secrets Widdle Wonniekins.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh, how Ron had made it in auror training and did well at his job, was still cause for confusion amongst those closest to him. “Sure, but I still need to take some time and practice my evading maneuvers today. I don’t want to take today and tomorrow off and not pass the last test for this on Monday.”

“Hey, I can help you with some of them. We were taught those maneuvers for training with the dragons, easy as cream.” Charlie said, slapping him on the arm and passing by to get the brooms from the garage. 

“Sure I would appreciate it, Charlie!” 

~~**~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so incredibly sorry for the late post. I already knew that a schedule was going to be hard for me. But with my 40+ hr work week, school starting, moving, a flare up with my chronic pain and depression clogging my every pore... life has just gotten away from me. Please continue to have faith and let me know when I forget... Like I've said, this story for sure has a lot of life left in it and has more then 25k more words already written and I've been writing a little each night because I feel like it just continues to keep going. 
> 
> Anyway... if you've read through my void posting at the bottom of the chapter, just know I appreciate you all and hope you liked this new one. 
> 
> xoxo Jacks


	10. A Generous Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We come to moments in our lives, often for some and nary at all for others, that can cause confusion unlike anything else. How we choose to crawl, walk, fly or attack those moments can alter our futures in one way or the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHORS NOTE: This chapter is crucial so please bear with me.

Ch. 10  
Hours later, in the setting sun of the wide rainbow trees, Harry was exhausted and exhilarated. He had been holding temperance with Snape when they dueled. He never felt truly comfortable sharing that level of magic with the Master. But with family, he felt free and it was truly everything he loved about the particular art of DADA.

“Hare!” He turned at Ron’s urging and narrowly avoided the attack that came from George. Casting a jelly jinx at the red head that was violently gearing up with a skin slime hex, and ducking down casting a ground shield effectively becoming one with the ground. He muttered an earth to mud spell and the land started crawling up Charlie and George’s legs, but Charlie had been ready and Dragons breath shot out of his wand to the ground, causing him to fly up in the air several meters and land in a tuck and roll nearly half the meadow away. 

Harry muttered and rolled out from the shield, George was still working on the mud that had turned to stone on his leg, he put a chain net charm on George noting that his yell was full of amused chagrin. Harry ran to the tree line and crossed over to the forest, he could hear Charlie on his tail and he pushed harder. There was a clearing about a kilometer in that he wanted to get to. 

His shirt caught on several branches and ripped, and in a fit of pique he tore the rest of it and threw it to the ground, making it to the clearing alone. He threw up shield charms and prepared himself in the middle of the nearly perfectly round small meadow. 

“Gone shirtless, eh, showing off that beautiful body for me then?” he heard Charlie taunting from the tree line, but could only pin point it to an area of a couple meters, he must be moving still. 

“Figured I would give you something to aspire to, why don’t you come out here and face me like a man! Or am I more intimidating than those Dragons you tame?” 

“Oh, you want me to tame you then?” a spell came flying from the right of Harry’s field of vision and he deflected and laughed. 

“I don’t think you could if you tried Charles!” 

“You dare call me my birth name you insolent whelp!” Harry heard the laugh in Charlies voice and ducked down at the exact moment that a spell flew toward him. He wasn’t expecting for Charlie to come up from behind him however, and take him into his grasp. 

Two strong arms wrapped around his middle and he was trapped with his back to the front of a strong chest. “What are you going to do now? I am so close, how do you get out of this?” Charlies voice ghosted in a coarse and deep whisper in his ear. He was trapped and he felt frustrated and… aroused. 

“How did you do it? How did you cast from the left and come from the right?” Harry asked, running through all his options. His arms trapped in the tight grasp making his wand nearly useless. 

“Ahhh, think about it. How could any man do something alone that doesn’t seem possible?” Harry felt Charlies voice grow more rough, his lips nearly touching his ear and the shudder rolled through him out of a need borne deep. “Is it magic?”

“I have magic, and I know I cannot break the laws that bound us by science.” 

“You shuddered… am I having an effect on you, then?” 

Harry felt Charlie shift, and the man’s entire body moved to align with his, and his own reaction to the close proximity was not missed. 

Harry was not the only one aroused. 

“You weren’t alone.” It was a guess, but one he was willing to lay out there, as he needed something, anything to gain moment to breathe. 

“Ahhh, there is that famed intelligence. Good boy” he purred and a jolt of electricity went through Harry’s spine. “You’re right, I wasn’t. You were so focused on my chase, that you did not pause to think that I might have released George from your spell. He followed in chase along the side of us, and went around the meadow to help me.” 

He could hardly focus, as Charlies thumb was starting to move in a soft petting motion under his left pectoral muscle, slowly and tantalizingly dragging his attention away from the topic at hand. “But, as any good man would… he has left us alone, and whatever shall I do with my prize, then?” 

His body gave another involuntary shudder, and he knew that he had to stop this. Charlie was nearly family, this had to be a part of the whole game. His mental shields slammed down and he focused on his options. Moving his body against the man holding him, hoping that it was showing interest, it struck him that if he used the same Dragons Fire spell, he would either fly up as Charlie had previously, or at the very minimum Charlie would let him go so that he could be free. 

He cast the spell and as expected he flew, though not nearly as far as Charlie had when he’d done so. He landed and rolled around at the last possible moment, noting the ginger haired man having been knocked back to his bum, and cast ‘petrificus totalis.’ And with that he knew he’d won. 

But what that meant, was a little muddled. He was violently aroused, and he felt need coursing through his blood. Practicing his deep breathing, he walked up to the man frozen on the ground and looked down. 

“I want the honest to Merlin truth, Charles Henry Weasley. Blink if you understand how sincere I am being.” He noted Charlie blink once and look him directly in the eye. “Was this a game?” 

Charlie didn’t blink.

“Are you taking the piss, because I am a fag?” 

Charlie didn’t blink.

“Do… do you, was this-“ 

Charlie blinked.

A million thoughts raced through his mind, and he focused on closing his walls again. “I am under contract right now, you know that right?” 

Charlie blinked. 

“You, you are like family. You are like, like a brother.” 

Charlie blinked.

“I consider myself flattered. You are an incredibly attractive man, you are talented and powerful and if… if I wasn’t already pretty sure that I… I might be falling for someone else… I might be able to, set aside some of the other things.”

Charlie kept his eyes locked on Harry. He blinked.

Dropping to his knees, he leaned forward and took Charlies face in his hands. 

“Do not let this be something that ruins us. I don’t wish to lose you.” He leaned forward and kissed Charlies cheek, and let go of the spell. 

“Is, is there any hope?” Charlies voice sounded rough and aggrieved but resigned.

“There is always hope. But… I will say that I am not sure what either of us would hope for. The man, the one that I have feelings for. He’s… well to hope that it wouldn’t work out so that this might, would nearly break me. But to also hope that you can just stop what you are feeling, would hurt you and I find that heartbreaking.” 

“You really care about him, this man?” 

“More than I think even I had realized, yes. And if anything, this is only helping me see it more clear.” 

“Then I will hope that he is worthy of you. Snape is an worthy man, and I would never presume to fight against him.” 

All the breath left Harry’s lungs and he fell back on his feet. “How do you know?”

Charlie laughed and it nearly sounded real as he moved to sit back on his bum with his hands resting behind him. “You’ve always had a thing for the strong and broody type. Those that are just out of reach of the moral spectrum. You have never really fit with anyone your age, and you’ve always had this weight to your eyes.” Charlie smiled and Harry knew that it was real, if a little sad. “Who would be better for you, than a man who also holds so much pain left from a burden of war that was too great for his own shoulders? But, just know, that if he ever hurts you… I, well I won’t presume to think that I can harm him. But, I will be there, if you ever need to let your mind go for a while.”

“I would never use you in such a way.” 

“Consider it a gift. It wouldn’t be using me. I’ve had my eyes and heart on your for nearly two decades now. I’m pretty sure it’s a family trait at this point. We Weasley’s either love you as family, or want you as a lover. Most of us have fought this battle internally at some point, though I wish to point out this does not include my parents, I assure you.” They both shuddered and laughed, Harry falling back and breathing deeply. 

“You are worth so much, Harry. Can I offer you some advice?” 

“Of course.”

“You dropped your shields a bit when we were dueling and I could see that you don’t use your full potential in your practice duels with Snape. Might it be that he can tell you are not giving him your all, and in return is not giving you his?” 

The ginger eyebrow rose and Harry felt his cheeks heat. “I don’t want to overpower him. He’s… so, dominate.” 

“Ahhh… I doubt that you winning a duel will make him think that you are any more dominate than you are. I am sure he would, ahh…. Still be dominate in other areas.” 

He coughed, “uh, right, yeah, thanks.”

“Come on, let’s go. Supper should be ready shortly and mum is probably going to make your favorite pudding because you are a spoiled brat.”

“I am not a brat!” he yelled and laughed. 

The walk back to the burrow wasn’t nearly as painful as he expected, and he knew that they’d moved past the moment with an unusual adult aplomb. 

~~**~~

The meal was pleasant, it had been a while since he’d been around more than simply Minerva or Potter, and he found that though he wouldn’t choose to do so regularly, the allure of being with others who understood his profession as well as him, was a nice reprieve. 

“So, how goes having the apprentice, Severus?” Filius said, and he noted that the table nearly immediately hushed as if awaiting his decision on the matter. 

“It’s, been… interesting.” 

“Ah, tsk tsk, Severus Tobias, you will share your thoughts and feelings here. If not among friends, than with whom?” Minerva’s statement was joined by a cacophony of “here here’s” and Severus knew that he would be forced into giving up his privacy on the matter. 

He took a sip of his brandy, and rather had hoped that he’d been further along in his cups before sharing intimate details about his life. 

“It has been an experience to be sure.” 

“Has he been doing well? Have you been pushing him?” Poppy asked with barely concealed interest. 

“Severus was telling me that young Harry hasn’t been doing as well as we’d hoped. I think Harry is being an utter Gryffindor about the whole thing, and doesn’t want to show our Severus his true abilities.” Minerva added, pouring a bit more whiskey into her glass and leaning back in her seat. Ever the lady on her throne to Severus’ mind.

“That does sound like Harry.”

Severus perked up at Poppy’s statement, “Why do you concur with that, Poppy? Was Potter ever truly talented while at the school? He found himself in the healing ward many times to be sure.” 

“Severus, shame on you, you cannot possibly still feel so little about Harry.” He took another sip of his brandy, and noted that Minerva was giving him an odd stare. Poppy went on, “Harry came to stay with me at Hogwarts during the year following the battle. He did so much for the recovery of the students that to be quite honest, I am not sure I would have been able to do all I did, without his assistance, now that I look back on it.”

“I never heard tale of Potter assisting in the infirmary while the castle was being rebuilt. Madam, I was here during that time.”

“You were, but you were also invalided. Additionally, it was your care in particular that caused me to be unable to truly provide the level of care that some others needed. Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini for instance. It had appeared that the younger Malfoy was brutally beaten the summer after the war, he showed up on the doorstep and the elves ushered him to me, but you were having severe paralysis at the time and couldn’t be left for great lengths.” She took a sip of her sherry and leaned back against the chair, looking up at the ceiling in memory. 

“Harry was so willing to help, that he immediately set aside old rivalries. It was the same honestly for both of them. I distinctly remember Harry saying sorry over and over as he wiped Dracos wounds.” She paused and blinked the wetness from her eyes a bit, “it was as if he was saying sorry for some of what he saw on the other man…”

Severus watched a single tear slide down the delicate cheek of the madam healer. “Then a few days later, Blaise showed up to see Draco, but Harry appeared to believe that Blaise was under similar fare. It turned out, that after he’d cornered the young man in the hall and pressured him, Blaise confessed that the left over vermin in their death eater masks had been torturing young Slytherins who had escaped battle.” 

A shudder went through him and he turned abruptly to Minerva. Her silent nod, urging him to continue listening. 

“Harry ushered Blaise into the infirmary and put him under a healing charm. Next thing I knew Harry was gone. You must have missed this when you went through all the papers when you were recovering, but Harry had gone proper heroic in the name of the Slytherin children being abused. He located the bastards at a home in Westingshire on the Green and had encouraged centaurs and several other woodland creatures to take their ire at their mistreatment during the war out on these cowardice individuals.” 

Severus could almost imagine the field in his mind. The rolling green grass, and the overly opulent home that was made of old marble with a stucco overlay. The garden that had gone to decay while under the reign of the dark lord. 

“In talking to Firenze after it was like Harry was an avenging angel. He swept in and stole the children out from the very hands of the bastards. They were doing such terrible things to them! Some of them nary old enough to be Hogwarts children at all. Firenze said that the centaurs and magical folk barely had anything to do but stop the ones that ran out of the house. He said that the house went up in fiendfyre and Harry came flying out of the second floor balcony. His wand aimed directly for Goyle and Malfoy. With a blast he cursed the entire house and it crumbled to the ground, all left within died immediately.” 

She sniffed and finished off her glass. “He brought the rest of the children here, young Miss Parkinson among them. She the worst off, having been harmed in the most intimate of ways during her torture. He stayed with her and the younger ones while he showed Draco and Blaise how to assist with some basic healing charms when I wasn’t able to help. Honestly if it hadn’t been for him, there are many lives that would have been lost or others that would have been hurt beyond repair.” She finished and looked him dead in the eye. “Do not you dare, Severus Snape, undervalue the strength of that man. He’s too good for this world, and yet he continues to give.”

“I hadn’t been aware of this, madam. I do apologize.” He finished off his own brandy and sat back as well. “It does raise the question then, why he feigns weakness when we duel. He has lost nearly all our duels, and he doesn’t accept the one win, because it was happenstance that he took appropriate advantage of.” 

“It’s probably because the boy is used to people having their roles to play.” 

Severus looked to his seat mate, Filius. “What do you mean with that bit of wisdom?” 

“Well, we all know his story. Or at least a large part of it. Harry came to believe that the abuse he suffered at the hands of those bloody ignorant fools he lived with, was all acceptable because of his role that he had to play in the war. He had to learn to sacrifice himself for all humanity and protect muggles even though the only muggles he knew intimately had been cruel and heartless to him.” Filius jiggled in his seat and reached across the table, charming the alcohol to go to the appropriate glasses to refill them. 

“You see, young Mr. Potter grew up thinking that people have their place and role in society, and that is the way that he treats people. If you are a friend, then your place is at his side or with him protecting you. If you are an enemy then your place is the other side of the battle field. If you are powerful your place is one of respect. If you are weak then depending on your actions, ahhh I see that you follow. I would be willing to bet that a portion of the reason he isn’t showing you his all, is that he believes it’s your place to out measure him while under tutelage. He will have to be shown that there is nothing to be ashamed of being stronger than someone else. Even you, Severus.” 

“Do you all truly believe him to be as strong as you infer?” He asked, but he already knew that Potter was. He’d felt it every time a spell had been cast and it hadn’t hit him with the force of the magic behind it. 

“Aye, that we do.” Pomona added. “He… he has a gentle soul behind all that fire. He would do well with someone to show him that fire and compassion do not have to be at odds.” She looked him in the eye and he felt he was being told something other than what had been said. 

“That he would do.” Minerva added, her eyes twinkling and Severus understood immediately where the conversation had gone. 

“You cannot be implying that I take his innocence?!” he roared and abruptly stood up from the table, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “It would be most improper, and for you to imply such a thing… do you think so little of me that you believe me incapable of keeping chaste with a man who is in my care and seeking training from me?”

“Severus, that is not what we are saying.” Poppy tapped her glass and a the sherry turned to water, before taking a sip and continuing. “It is just that we,” she paused and looked at the others around her, noting their nods of approval before continuing, “know that you both deserve more. You are a quiet soul, with a heart full to bursting with a need to… prove your worth to those you deem important. And Severus Snape, we have found you worthy for a long time. Harry, he’s… he’s been hurt quite a bit in his time. Things that I will not share, for I am in his confidence, but trust that he may one day open up to you. He deserves someone that will show him that he too is worthy, worthy of being happy and loved and worthy most of all, of being whoever he chooses to be.”

“He does not think so highly of himself as one would think he should. I heard the boy talk with my Neville while assisting last summer in the green houses. He was… seeing someone at the time and they took great advantage of him, and they burned and scorned the truths and secrets about him that he shared. He has closed himself off and he doesn’t feel as though the world wants the true man that lives within.” Pomona looked down at her plate and fiddled with the peas on her fork. “He feels locked away, unable to share even the smallest part of him, lest he be found lacking. It seems familiar, does it not?” Her eyes looked up, and Severus could feel them on him as he moved back and forth in front of the fire place. Thoughts racing through his mind, things he’d never given real credence to, taking shape in a way he had never presumed would be accepted. 

“But he is also strong of will. He will not be played with by anyone who does not equal him. He needs a strong hand to show him passion and fire and the joy of true understanding! He would be a great creator of charms, if he only allowed that burning spirit a little freedom. But alas, my boy, I do not see him letting the cage around his flaming soul, to open without a fair bit of help.” Filius added, bringing a flame up in his hand and charming a cage around it, showing his point. 

Severus stopped pacing, and turned to Minerva. “And you, Headmistress, how do you feel about me stealing the innocence of your favorite little lion?” 

“I for one doubt the innocence you seem so stuck on, but even at that. I have never seen two men more suited. If you are seeking my blessing, then though it is not mine to give, I will let you know you have it. My only hope is that you both flourish in this life. You have done so much and gone so far to show the world your true potential, and in so doing you have set in motion your ability to assist my young little lion boy, the same thing. I do so hope that you do not waste an opportunity when it is afforded you. That doesn’t seem to be a very Slytherin way of handling a situation.” She added, and her smirk was all but Severus’ undoing.

“You cannot believe him to find me a worthy companion. Any of you, you… you see me! I am not a young, virile man any longer, not that I ever was. He… he could have the world at his fingertips, any powerful wizard could be his.”

“Ahhh, if it’s his desire that you are unsure of, and this alone, then you might do well to truly pay attention to him in the coming weeks and months you’ve left with him in your home. From what I understand… he is not so stuck on the ‘culturally acceptable ideal standards of beauty’ and has always ‘found, striking and esoteric features to be what draws his eye’, if I do remember the comment well, Poppy, Pomona?” Minerva looked over to her two friends and they giggled and nodded their heads.

“What is this then? What do you know?” 

“What we know is that it is your responsibility, if the desire is within you, to earn the trust of Harry and learn of his wants yourself.”

“Ahhh, Severus, my boy, it appears as if you have been out maneuvered! Haha!” Filius added, wiggling in his seat once more and sloshing a bit of his drink on his beard before charming it back to his glass for him to finish off. 

“I believe then, that I am off. This appears to have been much more than I was prepared to converse of this evening. Good evening.” He bowed forward and walked briskly from the dining hall, ignoring the tittering and whispering of the occupants behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please don't hate me. I promise this whole thing has a purpose that gets later discussed in DETAIL. I hope the end added a bit of joy and lightheartedness to even out the beginning. PS: I love writing fight scenes, there is so much to pack into moments to fill in a whole scene and I really enjoy it and feel like I get challenged when I do that. 
> 
> As always thank you for keep up with me and this story. xoxo Jacks


	11. A Quiet Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because you've been handling something, doesn't mean you have to do so alone.

Ch. 11  
Monday rolled around with its weighted potential for the worst to happen, and Severus couldn’t be bothered to think all the possible outcomes through. He hadn’t come up with a suitable time to discuss the finer points of his knowledge about Potters life with the man, and he knew that he was too late now. He would have to work hard to keep his shields up throughout the next weeks while they covered this portion of his training. 

He had set aside all the potions on order for the next several weeks, as mental training would take much more out of him than the physical training that they’d been focusing on here-to-fore. He came down the stairs at 0630 and noted that Potter wasn’t in the kitchen, and the small note of annoyance that there was still this awkward distance between them creeped up in his mind, the scowl that accompanied it, he was sure it favored more the man from his Professorial days than what he most commonly showed now. 

He went through the motions of making tea while checking the time and noting that he had plenty of it to make some buttered toast. He caught the glimpse of movement out of the back garden and focused on the shirtless man that had run around the house to his private garage in the back. Severus noted the sheen of sweat and the damp hair at the mans nape, the baggy pants that hung low on the waist and the dark thatch of hair that started at the lower back going into said shorts. 

His mouth watered, and he banished his toast. He wasn’t in the mood to eat, and he needed to prepare for the day that lay ahead. To think of anything else at this point would be madness. 

Potter showed up precisely at 0700 and the knock on the door was the standard two soft raps before Severus said enter. He’d moved the tables and chairs around so that there was a comfortable sitting area in the center of the lab. Two overly large, plush chairs, and several potions sitting on the chair side tables. The lights were low and the windows had sheer drapes over them. He’d set out many dozens of candles and burned lavender and rosemary for calming and clarity. 

“This is… different.” Potter said, before moving to the seating in the middle of the large lab. 

“Of course it is. We are focusing these next few weeks on building up your mental shields, and teaching how to utilize mental attacks for multitudes of reasons. There are many facets of Occlumency and Legilimency that I didn’t cover when we had trained on this many years ago. And I wish to do this better this time around.”

“Right.” 

“Please sit down and we will cover some things before we get started.” Severus had never been more grateful for thinking of taking the mental clarity potion before Potter had walked in the room. He could see clearly how timid and worried the other man was, and he was not going to take the bait and hinder their already bad chances. 

“Alright, the first thing that we are going to cover is mental shields. Now, I want you to try to get into my mind. Not just through the shields but I want you to see and feel the shields. I want you to try and get a grasp of how they look, how they react, how they move when you try to get through them. I think this will help you see what it means to build them up.”

“Alright, but you must know that I’ve already learned this… I had to for the first levels of the mastery training several years ago.” 

“Yes, but I also know that you sometimes project. I have borne witness to several of these projections, and as such, I think that you may only use defensive shielding. Which in normal circumstances, is fine. But as a Master of Defense, you will have to learn to have a functioning shield at all times.”

“What do you mean I’ve projected? What have I projected at you, Professor?” Severus heard the abject fear in the voice and calmed his beating heart. 

“Nothing untoward. Simple things that have allowed me the upper hand later on when we’ve dueled.” 

“…right. Okay, sure.”

The hours spun away from them and before they knew it, it was supper time. Neither of them had stopped for lunch, as when Potter had finally started to understand what Severus was talking about with passive shielding they had moved swiftly towards the next level of mental mastery and so on. There had been several near misses where Potter had winged by his shields much faster than he’d anticipated, and he’d had to stamp down many thoughts, feelings, and memories to make sure that he didn’t give himself away. But the things that he’d shared had been no less worrying, as they were moments when he’d been masturbating in the shower, or when he’d been tracing his scars on his chest whilst looking in the mirror. 

He’d let the feeling of irate frustration go, as he knew that this was part of the process and that he’d have to get better about letting more simple and easy-to-part-with items be visible. It wouldn’t do for him to make it so difficult or wish that Potter wouldn’t succeed, as he needed to and in so having done, proved that he was a quick and efficient learner when the thought process permitted. 

He had also seen several small snippets and had never been more grateful to witness some of the very abuse that he’d known of. He knew that it would allow him the ability to bring it up later on. Now that he’d seen it, it might be that he would bring the topic up and never let on that Minerva had let him in on the knowledge of the depraved youth of the other man.

~~**~~

They did this repeatedly over the next several days before Friday showed and Potter didn’t appear on time at the lab door. It was a first and immediately Severus was on high alert. He left the lab and went down to the kitchens, noting that Potter hadn’t been in them in the early morning hours. He quickly moved to the garage and noted the small light that was flittering through the window and knocked sharply on the door. 

“…Severus, please” he heard the soft whimper and slammed through the door and wards with ease. There on the bed, sweat pouring from the face and neck and through the shirt fabric, was Potter in a haze of red skin and tense muscles. 

“I don’t have the potion… I need help. …can’t move, please.”

Severus took in all that he was seeing and tried to come up with anything that Potter was ailing from in particular. “What is wrong with you? What is happening?” He said, moving forward and casting diagnostic spell after spell to attempt to glean some answers. 

“Horcrux. Aftermath. Shocks. Nerves, brain, so much bloody pain.” 

Severus counted through all the potions that would normally assist with nerve damage and summoned several while moving the man to a seated position as gently as he could. He poured the first two down his throat before summoning a patronus and sending it to Granger. He hadn’t had any knowledge of this, and after Potter took the final potion he’d be asleep for the greater rest of the morning, and he needed answers, and he needed them now.

He watched Potter sleep while he wrote down all that had transpired that morning. The man had drifted to sleep shortly after the last potion he’d taken, and even in his sleep Severus could tell that it was not completely restful. He noted the mini seizure like happenings and the fever that continued to rise. He felt Granger enter the edge of his wards and sent her his patronus to walk her around the back to the garage.

He left the chair, but didn’t wander past the front of the door. 

“Professor Snape? You said it was Urgent. Is Harry alright?” she said, running around the hedges and nearly directly into him. He placed a hand out on her shoulder to steady her and tamped down his urge to squirm, physical touch was still as difficult as ever, it seemed. 

“He is not fine, Mrs. Granger, and I need answers.” 

“Granger-Weasley, and yes, how can I be of service?”

“Follow me.” 

He turned around and let her follow him through the door of the small abode. “Potter appears to be suffering from some ailment, however until today I had no knowledge that he was under any particular pains. When I came in here this morning, he was fevered, sweating and muttered about horcrux residual pains. He stated that he didn’t have his potion with him, and I provided what I could. But I need more to go on, if I am to assist him better.”

He watched as the young woman moved past him and cast several of her own diagnostic spells on the man laying prone on the bed. He waited as patiently as he could while she mothered and crooned on him, and watched her whisper a spell and pull an item from under the man’s pillows before summoning the blanket and wrapping him up completely. 

“Alright, I will talk of this with you, if we can do so over a cuppa. He has his anchor now, and with your potions he will be as good as he can while he recovers.” 

“Follow me.” He moved for his chambers, while recasting the wards on Potters room. He would have to ask Potter why the wards hadn’t altered him to his ailment when the man had recovered and was able to talk. 

“Harry has some residual issues from having housed part of the Dark Lords soul for nearly 17 years. It was to be expected really, but we never really knew what to look for, or what signs there would or should be, as there had never been another case on record of a surviving human horcrux.” 

Severus moved about the kitchen and made the tea while he listened. Taking as many mental notes as possible to ask questions later or for research. 

“Around the time of the mental examinations in the Mastery school, Harry started having even more haunting nightmares, though he didn’t tell us. He just dealt with them as he does all other things that he deals with. It wasn’t until he spent a night with us that we truly understood what was haunting our friends eyes when he was awake.” He listened as she paused and took a deep breath. 

“It appeared that when Harry had slain the Dark lord that night all those years ago, a shield had been built in the very place where the fragment of the hideous man’s soul had been. It was as if his brain had noticed that there’d been something there all this time, and in order for his mind to continue functioning, it had built a shield there to compensate for the weight that had gone.” She paused again and leaned forward. “Have you ever seen the muggle movie Indiana Jones?” 

Severus brought the two steeping cups to the table and sat across from the woman, and nodded his head. “Yes.” 

“Then it’s like the moment when he pilfers the item off the platform in the cavern and has to put the weighted bag at the same time, or at least this is how I think of it.”

“Seems reasonable ascertain.”

“Right. Well all the mental attacks that his mind was taking during the examinations apparently had disturbed this portion of his mind and the shield had fissured a bit. This is purely based on some mental digging I did several times while he’d been dosed and I was trying to get understanding.” He watched, mildly impressed, as she waved her hand and a simple cooling charm was laid over the cup. 

“I studied hard in those weeks and set aside nearly all my classes to find a way to cure or aid him. I found a potion and spell combination in a tome from Egypt that discusses the pharaohs and their horcruxes that they’d made upon entering the tombs. Though fascinating it was also incredibly beneficial, because it talked of potions they created to aid their servants that had taken the souls of their masters and would sleep alongside their masters bodies in the tombs and take care of their resting place until they would need their soul back at a later time. They spoke of potions that would aid in the recovery of the servants that would survive the horcruxes that were taken from them should the pharaohs ever awake. 

And though this never occurred, the potions design and spell was easy enough to figure out once I was able to travel with Bill to Egypt and get some of the original text transcribed.” 

Severus watched as the woman across from him, closed her eyes and maneuvered her wand in a complex shape set, and muttered several words before a box and rolled parchment appeared. 

“How did you get that past my wards?” he asked, his utter shock evident in a way he wished it rather wasn’t.

“You’ve appear to have woven some factors into your wards regarding the health and safety of Harry. The wards recognized my items as such that would assist in his recovery and allowed them through.” 

“You see and feel wards?” 

“You must not know my job, sir. I am the Ministries highest ranked official in the department of mysteries.” 

He sat back and eyed the items that she’d brought into his home before taking a hold of the parchment and summoned his reading glasses. 

“This should aid you in creating the potion, if that is what you are aiming to do. I have at least two vials left from before, and they should be good as they’ve been under a stasis this entire time. I hadn’t thought of the fact you’d both be going over mental magics again, or I’d have demanded he bring these with him, and discuss this facet with you prior to. Don’t worry, rest assured that he will get an earful when he recovers, from both Ron and I. We went through far too much for him to play these meddlesome heroics still all these years later.” 

“I appreciate it, and I hope you understand that I too will have a word with him regarding this. It appears he also took down the wards that I had placed on his room while he was here, for very situations like there where he was in danger, so as to alert me.”

“How did you know to search for him then, sir?”

“He has been very prompt the entire time that he has been an apprentice. The moment that he was not at my lab at 0700 this morning, I knew that something must have been afoot.”

There was a silence that was neither overwhelming or uncomfortable between them for a time, before Granger-Weasley stood up. “Please let me know if you need anything else from me in the coming day or two. I am not sure how in-depth your mental magics have been but generally it takes about 24 hours after an episode before he is completely alright.” 

“I will send word when he has woken. I assume he is still going to go to the Weasleys on Sunday.”

“I wouldn’t recommend most forms of travel when he is like this. Though side along apparation may do well.”

He thought he saw a calculating gleam in the dark brown eyes before whatever it was disappeared. “Of course, I will bring him when he chooses to set out.”

“That would be most welcome. I will let Molly know to set another plate for dinner.”

“Hold on, madam, I did not say that I would stay.” He stood abruptly while Granger set for the front door. 

“Of course you didn’t, but you would never go so far as to offend Molly by dropping Harry off at the door and not staying for lunch at least. She would be so terribly offended. Not to mention from what I understand, you haven’t been over in several years. It would do you and the Seniors of the family good to have some time together.” She opened the door to the front of his home and turned back to him, “Plus you are training Harry, he is essentially their son, they should spend some time with you.”

“You presume too much, ma’am.”

“Of course I do. If you do not wish to stay for lunch, then you can let Molly know. But I will at least let her know that you are bringing Harry, so she can plan accordingly.” He watched the woman open his front door and close it behind her. He had a feeling he’d just been outmaneuvered and he didn’t know for what the game was the he’d just lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! Our poor boy, always carrying the weight of the world. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and look at that, I downloaded it on time. Even if it meant getting out of bed at nearly 10PM because I just remembered I needed to do this! I will be answering some of the comments left last chapter, tomorrow. 
> 
> You are all amazing and I thank you so much for keeping me inspired to continue this story out. 
> 
> As always, love Jacks xoxo


	12. A Conversation in the Light of Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter dedication - Akikofuma, thank you for your kind words. Due to them, you will get a chapter today!
> 
> Summary: When I awoke in the darkness, after the fearful cold that had enslaved my soul. Seeing you there, in the rays of the stars, the faint glow of something more, awoke within me as well. Where did you come from, and do you have to go?

Ch. 12

The rest of the day passed with Severus working until he had to take a break and let the potion simmer, running downstairs and out to check on Potter, providing what little moral support could be provided, and then running back up the stairs to move the potion along. He was exhausted and worried in more measure than he’d been since the last time he’d felt personally responsible for the life of the tiresome man that was downstairs. 

He syphoned out 12 vials of the potion just as the clock chimed on the wall 2100 and he sat down on the overstuffed chair in the middle of the lab. He’d been working all day just so that he could avoid thinking about all the little things that wanted to creep in and destroy his calm. He now had nothing with which to do that. 

He gathered the vials, and the parchment from the table, put the potions equipment under a stasis for it to wait until later for him to clean up, and went downstairs. He set out to make some tea and toast with jam, and once that was resolved, he made his way to Potters garage. He had not thought hard about his place in all of this, nor had he wanted to until he’d completed the task of creating the potion. Now that he had, however, he was at a loss for what he ultimately wanted. 

The blame was partially on him, he knew that. Yes, Potter hadn’t shared with him all the information that he needed to, in order to adequately train him and prepare for this training, but it was on him for all the myriad of failings he had produced in a short frame of time due to his lack of trust and understanding of a boy who had the world on his shoulders, many years ago. 

He felt the tightness in his chest, the anger and frustration at the man he’d been and the man he’d taken pleasure in being. He had loved the look of frustration and anxiety on Potters face when he was a student, the impotent rage that would well up so enticingly, he’d loved seeing him fail and had believed that it was due to Potters lack of intelligence and nothing else. He’d loved the feeling of being powerful and lording it over the very boy that everyone else mollycoddled and treated with kid gloves. 

And yet, he’d learned that what he’d always assumed was in fact the farthest from the truth. Yes, Potter had been sheltered but for the very things he should have been better prepared for. And he was loved, but the people that truly loved the boy had been the Weasleys and some of the professors who knew of the sad tale of the boys life and had decided to show him what love and compassion could be like. 

Severus had long since known that level of evil he must have been, and though part of him could still rationalize the reasoning behind it, he knew that there were facets of his treatment of Potter that had devolved due to his hatred of Potters father, and had nothing to do with the dark lord in which he had feigned devotion to. And what a failing it was to acknowledge that in yourself. To know that you were part of the reason a boys life, that was already being built for slaughter, was even worse; there was hardly any emotion to credit the shame and conflagration that he felt. 

He opened the door to the garage and noted that Potter was still very much asleep, the potions from earlier would be waring off soon and he wanted to be there to re-dose the man if he needed it. He set down his things and made to move the chair closer to the bed. His thoughts a jumble of ‘what if’s’ ‘if onlys’ that he only ever allowed himself to think when he was at his own most vulnerable. 

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and hung his head, taking in the sleeping figure on the bed; the pale and slightly gaunt facial features speaking to how close to, ‘too thin’ the man was when healthy, the sheen of sweat and the shiver showing that he wasn’t nearly as out of the woods as Severus would have liked, but it was the item that he was clutching in his sleeping arms that caught his eye. 

It was a small snake stuft plush. Severus’ first reaction was the smirk, but it was quickly quieted with chagrin. With as much as he knew there would have been no way that Potter had had this plush as a child, there was simply no way. He moved forward and laid a hand carefully on the plush and felt the charms that were layered into the fabric, and recognized it for the totem that it was. The very act of creating an item like this took care, and love and family. He searched for magic he recognized and felt the Elder Weasleys, Granger and some of the other Weasley clan, and he felt what appeared to be Minervas’ signature as well. It appeared that when this had happened previously, all the others of the people closest to Potter had devised a plan to keep him safe even when he was at his most vulnerable to the outside forces and the forces of within. 

He let out a sigh and fell back into his chair. Sipping his tea and focusing on the man in the bed. He couldn’t deny that he was feeling something at this point, but it was a ghost of a feeling he’d long since given up on, and he wasn’t sure what it truly was or if it was real. All he knew was that he would have a word with the man when he woke up, and he would be giving him a real piece of his mind for making him worry as such. 

~~**~~

The moan woke him from his tepid slumber. Rolling his neck to crack the stiffness loose, and blinking his eyes open to the bleary darkness only lit by the moon sweeping through the windows. He looked at the bed, and noted the dazed open eyed look of the man in the sheets and the deep breath that he’d been holding since that morning, swept through him. 

Potter had survived. 

“Snape?” The grumble of the hoarse throaty sound, washed over Severus like a wave of emotion come crashing down. 

“Potter, you’re awake.” He moved to stand up and felt his hip and thigh tingle with pain. He hissed and leaned back down to stay seated for the time being. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. Better. Thirsty.” 

Severus summoned a glass of water from the kitchenette and he watched as Potter slowly sipped it. Noting that he didn’t take it too fast, and hashed it up to all those times that the other man had woken in the hospital throughout his tenure as a student. 

“How did I… how did you, what happened?”

“You didn’t appear for lessons. I came here, you made some rather unintelligible hints at what disease had overcome you. I called for Granger who was able to fill in some gaps.” Severus growled a bit into the darkness and noted the slightly embarrassed look that flushed the mans’ face. 

“Why didn’t you think to tell me about this possibility? At the very minimum we would have taken this much slower. We would have been prepared.”

“Because I won’t always be prepared in the field. I won’t always have every opportunity to put myself in the best possible place at the best possible time, to do the best possible thing for me. I have to learn to deal with this, so that I can excel through this issue and not be burdened by it.”

“That’s Gryffindor idiocrasy at its finest.” Severus rubbed his thigh and closed his eyes through the pain. “You will always suffer this ailment. It will be part of you FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. It would be better of you to learn how to protect yourself from this occurring whilst learning the basics. Than to assume that at some point your weakness will undoubtedly kill you, ‘so fuck it.’” He made to stand, and though the pain in his thigh was severe he pushed through until he made it to the bed. 

“You are a temperamental child. I need you to TRUST me. Why can you not do this?” 

“I… I do trust you,”

“False, if you had trusted me then this would not have happened. I will ask only once more, why do you not trust me?” he glared down into the eyes of the man that he found he wanted answers from that he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. 

“I do trust you – no, I do… it’s just.” Potter let a sigh out that felt weighted with the worries of the world. “You are Severus Snape, Potions and Defense Master. Double Agent in the war. The best friend of my mother who I never knew. The most talented and adept wizard alive. You are wise and kind even if you do not wish to let others see that last part. I am so small by comparison.” The pause took a moment, but he spoke again before Severus could say anything. “I do trust you, but it’s much like trust placed in someone a bit too late. You have never believed in me. You have never known or accepted my role in the war and in life. And I reciprocated. I didn’t believe in you and I didn’t believe you. I never accepted you and I never took you for more than face value. Now I am trying to show you how much I can do, how well I can succeed, how independent I am and how talented I can be – but I am failing because to do all these things, I have to do so much more that isn’t who I am.” He watched as he levied himself up on the pillows and looked outward to the end of the bed. 

“I am full of questions, but I fear that if I ask them you will think me ignorant. I am full of ideas, but I fear that to verbalize them you will think me arrogant. I am full of magical ability but I fear to show it would devalue my role as your Apprentice. I am trying to learn but I am also trying to show you that I am not the same arrogant, foolish and headstrong boy that I was.”

The silence rendered between them a level of discomfort that was only lessoned on Severus shoulders because he’d heard more to solidify what he’d been told by his staff friends. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and clasped his hands between his thighs. He didn’t look at the man on the bed, because he knew that if he did, he would lose all chance of saying the very things that he needed to in order to clear this miasma of fear and self-loathing between the two of them. 

“I have told you to speak to me, to ask me questions, to share with me your thoughts so that we might discuss them.” He looked down at his hands and continued. “I need to let you know some things, but I have failed to build the bond that I felt was sufficient to do so. However, I do not think that I can hold off any longer, because it appears that this is the correct time to state the facts.” 

He fell into a silence as he gathered his thoughts and pushed down the hatred and self-doubt that welled up within him. 

“…yes?”

“Shortly after I was awarded the Order of Merlin’s First and Second class, I was sharing a drink with Minerva in her office. This was maybe 2 years after the war and Hogwarts had just opened back up and the students were set to start classes a few weeks later. I got drunk, and… and I let go of some things that I had kept within me. Things that I had felt and thoughts that I had had about you and… and Lily, and your Father. Minerva in all her dignified glory implored me to give up the hate that filled me at the thought of how I had destroyed your life, and the loathing for your father and the things he had done and borne witness to when I was a teen.” He felt his throat constrict but he swallowed through and kept speaking.

“I gave her what I thought was a very acute and complete piece of my mind on the subject, and she appeared to have had quite enough of me. I thought that she was going to push me through the floo, but instead she took out the penseive and pushed my spinning, aching head into the bowl.” He unclasped and clasped his hands again, and looked up at the wind catcher before looking back down again. 

“I was thrust head first into what originally appeared to be a worse rendition of my childhood. A toddler lying on a matt, in a dark closet, covered in feces and urine and crying. I watched as the door opened and a woman who I immediately recognized as Petunia reached through the door frame and slapped the child hard. I recoiled and watched in horror as she shook the babe until there was silence, and she shut the door again. 

I stood there as the air around me shifted like water and a young boy stood at the counter in sodden pants and a filthy shirt, trying to get the shells out of the eggs before he was caught, the frenzied panic that was in his eyes one that I could easily understand and sympathize with. But he wasn’t quick enough. A large rotund man entered the kitchen and noted the boy and their hands in the bowl and he took the whip to the boys back legs so quick, even if I’d been able to protect him, I wouldn’t have been able to move fast enough. I watched that boy crumple to the ground as he was lifted by his hair and thrown into the closet again. 

The air kept shifting and so many scenes unfurled, until, at last I came to what was the worst thing I had ever born witness to. A teen who looked to be about the age when he’d just recently watched his newly found and favorite uncle die. Tied to the bannister of the stairs and being – molested…” the words clogged in his throat and though he swallowed them down, he couldn’t stop the ache that filled his voice. “I watched the light dull and the boy that was always so quick to anger, so quick to jump and save and ask questions later, became a shell of the very same. I stood there rendered helpless as the scene played out in its entirety in front of me and the powerlessness didn’t end there. I was shunted out of the memories and fell at the knees of the Headmistress.” His knuckles where white from where they were clasped together so tightly. 

“I failed you. Where I should have seen the trauma in your mannerisms, I saw an arrogant boy. Where I should have seen the fear that haunted your eyes, I saw foolhardiness and shortsighted mindlessness. Where I should have recognized myself in you, I chose instead to see your father and his misdeeds. I failed you and where I recognized that, I also saw where we all failed you. Where we all chose to see the facets we wanted. Where we all chose to push you beyond anything that should ever be asked of a child, but because you were the prophecy of course you could handle it… there was never any doubt, and yet there should have been some support.” 

He looked up and took a deep breath and turned his eyes to the man leaning against the pillows. “I don’t tell you this so that you might be turned from your trust in Minerva. Her only goal was to show me how truly wrong I was. She succeeded in this. I tell you this, so that you might know that whereas I have changed in the last 10 years due to being allowed to breathe and not having two manic masters whose behest I had to uphold, I also changed my perception of you.” He leaned forward a mere inch and noted the other man’s small intake of breath. 

“When I ask you to trust me, it’s because I know that you can. Because I know things I shouldn’t, and I’ve sworn to never share what I know. I ask you to trust me, because I know these parts about you, and I understand them because I too suffered at the hands of an abusive relative and was made to endure torture and pain that never seemed to end. I ask you to trust me, because I want nothing more than to see you succeed in this and in anything else you do. Do you understand that?”

He kept his eyes locked on the darkened green eyes that made him feel like he was drowning. The moonlight casting a glow on the pale skin of the man he sought some form of understanding from. It was as if there was some sort of shift in their combined intimacy and though neither of them said another word, there was a comfort in the silence. 

“I have copied the potion that Granger made for you, I will place them by your bed. Should you find yourself waking to any of the feelings as before, please take it. I have also reset the wards.” He looked down and felt the stern features cascade over his face again. “We will be discussing that when you are well tomorrow.”

“Yes… Professor.” 

“Insolent whelp.” 

He got up from the bedside and with a final hard look, trying to glean any information from the man invalided on the bed, he left the garage and felt as though when he crossed the threshold of the door the weight of years’ worth of pain and sadness seemed to melt away into the cool night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the continued support for this story! Because of you all, the story keeps growing and adapting and building. I originally started this in the last week of June and intended for it to be a rather short fic, but since then it has grown and become something much more indepth than I had originally anticipated. 
> 
> I do hope that I continue to please you all and I thank you, each of you, for the comments and kudos and helping me get through the days, and weeks and the miserable parts of life. 
> 
> xoxo Jacks


	13. Calm and Collected over Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I always find it easy to breathe after a panic attack. In the light of the other side, the stress of the event having finally coalesced into this blinding jolt of awareness. All that is left is the truth of the moment and all other lessons learned.

Ch.13

The night that followed and the next morning were as peaceful as to be expected. The emotional release had been good for him but he’d not planned on it and as such he was replete. He’d languished in the shower and had allowed himself a lie in, in the morning. Choosing instead to arise at 6 instead of his customary 5 am, as such he found himself walking into the kitchen at the same time that Potter did. They made an awkward attempt at eye contact, and he watched as Potter moved to scratch the back of his neck and hung his head low. 

He decided to give the younger man some silence to work through whatever it was that was causing him to feel…whatever it was that he was feeling. He went through the calming practice of making and steeping the morning tea, and went to the table where the newspaper was lying open and waiting for him to peruse. 

He relaxed as the sounds of cooking filled the room, and his tea floated over to his side. He could feel himself smirk but kept his face down to the table. The time passed for what he would have thought was a standard morning for the both of them, if he hadn’t known better, the events of the night before may not have ever happened. 

“I forgive you. I… you didn’t know. Now you do, and I can see that you’ve been trying and I’ve been hiding. I… I will do better. I will try harder. Please… all I ask,” the voice was soft but firm and he understood it for the branch that it was. Neither of them looked at the other and neither of them said anything else. Severus kept his head down looking at his paper, for fear that looking up might derail the courage that the other man had seemingly gathered. 

“Please don’t give up on me. Please. I am not used to… any of this. I need to be pushed,I don’t find any of this to be easy.”

“Then give me more, I need all of you. I won’t give up on you, I took an oath as a Master to keep you and guide you and show you all I know as my apprentice, but you have to show me that you want this. That you want all of this.” He sat there and let the words hang between the two of them. Their weight, heavier than they’d any right to be for so early a conversation in the day.

“I will give you more. I will, I promise.”

“That is all I have and ever will ask. Just give me what you have within you. I want to help you, and… as much as it pains me to say such, you are not the imbecile your father was. I believe that we could work well together in many fashions, but mainly to see you achieve and become the best master of a generation. I just ask that you allow yourself to flourish in this setting.”

He looked up and noted that Potter was facing away and looking out at the garden as the sun was rising over the horizon. He could see the tense shoulders and the firm grasped white knuckles on the counter and the breathing that looked close to being measured. He watched as the man moved to gather the eggs and toast and jam to bring them to the table. Levitating the sausage and ham to follow as he settled in his seat. 

“I wanted to talk to you about why hibiscus isn’t used in the restorative draught.” 

Severus looked up, and noted that Potter was still deftly looking down, as if the very thought of asking questions was something to be shameful of. He ran through his options on handling the situation, and decided that the best way through this was to speak about the topic and treat the conversation as if he was interested, which if truth be told, he was. 

“It depends on where you are in the world mostly for some potion variations. Hibiscus is a native plant to the warmer regions and as such, it would be more commonly used in potions from there and created there. Why do you ask?”

“I was reading Gibsons Work on Potions and Alchemical Balances, and he states that every plant has a definitive plant or subtype elsewhere in the world that can balance out the same structure within potions; except of course for ‘The List of 10 Otherworldly Exceptions’ Hibiscus is a hardy plant that cant be grown in most green houses. It can be diluted, broken down, heated up, but it isn’t singularly used for a particular purpose and has many health attributions to choose from.” 

Severus went to speak, but it was as if the dam in the other man had broken forth. He saw a note pad and biro sail in from Potters garage to the kitchen and land open on the table between them. “Additionally, I was thinking that there are several ways that we can better the current burn paste that is standard use across all wizarding platforms. The current variation utilizes plants that are mainly grown and maintained in cooler climates, as it was created first in Norway during the fires of 1604, however I think that with the correct detail we could manufacture a gel, much in the way that the muggles use and it would have a longer lasting effect and could be utilized for open wounds in the way the current burn paste cannot.” He watched as the mans’ left hand flipped deftly through the pages while the right held the fork of eggs that found his mouth, until he landed on what Severus assumed was the page in which he wished to display. 

“See, here,” and he looked down as the page was turned to face him. Noting the detailed drawings of an aloe perfoliata, honeysuckle, chamomilium nobile, and the clerodendrum inerme. 

“So, I was thinking,” Potter continued, “The current burn paste has the standard plants in it, but all of these are better for a base and can be made into three different textures; a gel, paste, and cream. All of these would be useful based on the age of the infirm, level of burn, and length of recovery. Also, they can all be grown in most climates, their seeds can be easily cultivated and with magic we might be able to bring the Cleodendrum back from near extinction from muggle over-culling.” 

Severus read over the notes, and saw several key points that were valid. He let himself come up with several different arguments, but waited to allow Potter the chance to eat. He would happily admit to nearly anyone that he was not only excited that Potter had opened this conversation, but what this could mean for the collective Potions world as a whole. 

He found himself impressed.

“Alright, several key reasons that I would have brought up, it appears you’ve already researched. How about today we take some time away from the mental magics, and we work on your prevailing theories for the burn paste. I think we should focus on the gel first and see what you can come up with.”

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes, of course. Part of your apprenticeship is to either create or modify a spell or potion. This would fall under the second, however, I think that you might have to create a spell to work into this… but let’s work on the base first and then we can expand on spell work if need be.”

“Creating this… do you even have all these materials?” 

“I have all except the aloe sub species in particular that you’ve got here… but I believe we can acquire it easily enough with a trip to one of my suppliers in Paris. I will work on obtaining the portkey while you get ready this morning.”

They lapsed into a shared silence as they ate. He fingered through the pages and noted the copious amounts of notes, and the well-drawn renditions of plants, different potion alchemical make ups’, and cauldrons with their matching magical stir rods. He also noted when the lettering was clean and when it appeared harried and quickly written, showing almost as clear as day when the man had thought of something and hastened to get it down before forgetting the idea. “You draw masterfully.” 

He glanced up out of the corner of his eyes, and saw the blush creep up Potters neck. 

“Thank you. It was just something to pass the time, and it helps me learn and maintain the information about specific plants in potions.” 

“If it was just for memorization, you could easily just write about the object. You are a deft and practiced artist, you’d do well to take the compliment for what it is worth. I do not generally comment on the menial accomplishments such as art and the like.”

He watched across the table as the deep red sweetened the cheeks of the man that refused to look up. “You are not very Griffyndor-ish if you are not whooping for joy at the mere compliment of your very obvious talents.”

“You would think that, which is one of the many reasons that I wasn’t always comfortable with the limelight. But…” there was a pregnant pause followed with a sigh as he watched those verdant discs look up and directly at him. “thank you for the compliment.”

The day was mostly spent on working to get all the notations and information that Potter had already collected up on the boards in the lab. It didn’t take long however for Severus to see the sheen of sweat that clung to the brow of the younger man and was about to put a halt to the events when Potter himself stated that he needed a break. What originally started as a break for lunch, ended up extending into the evening as his apprentice continued to feel weak. It wasn’t a risk either of them was willing to test, and as such he allowed for the extension in both of their rest. It wasn’t until dinner that night that he remembered his promise to Granger, or the stipulation that he be present at the burrow for Sunday festivities. 

“It was suggested that I bring you to the Burrow, due to any lingering weakness that might aggrieve you. It was also rather obliquely implied that I have done the Weasley’s a disservice in not showing my person at their meals now that I am an active participant in your studies.” He continued slicing his bread as he talked, and didn’t look up. 

“As such, I will be bringing you to the Burrow tomorrow with side-along apparation. I will be staying for dinner only, so I was hoping that you would be alright with leaving a little later in the day. We might use that time in the morning to make up some of the time lost the throughout the past several days due to your recovery.”

“That… that is more than fine.”

“Really, no arguments about your strength or the implication that I am desired at your adopted families gathering?”

“Why would I argue either of those facts? You seem to continue to forget that I am more logical than you give me credence for being. I am still weak, and I remember with many regrets the times that I apparated or traveled via floo the last time this happened to me. It nearly cost me my life both times. And you should come ‘round for dinner. I can only assume that ‘Mione is going to give me a solid scolding for my scene that I caused here, but you may as well be there if I am to hear from Molly about my sheer inhospitable thoughtlessness that I never thought to invite you.” 

“It would hardly seem appropriate, I am hardly more than your professor.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’re a damn sight more than a basic teacher at this point. After all, had this been merely a century ago, I’d be your Eromenos and you’d have made a contract with my family and not I. It seems logical that some traditions still apply.”

Severus stayed silent, fearing the conversation would stray into more intimate topics if he asked the questions that littered his mind with curiosity. 

“It is fine that we leave a bit later in the day. I did want to talk to you about what you thought regarding some of the ideas I brought up, and I also would like to see what we can come up with regarding strategy for avoiding an incident like previous from happening again. What say, 1600? Dinner is generally served around 1900 and this would allow me some time with the family prior to, and then we don’t have to stay so long after the meal which I am sure will be plenty of time to remind you why you didn’t appreciate the gingers of my life in Hogwarts.” The final statement was said with a smirk, and Severus was hard-pressed to see a reason to deny a solid plan as such. 

“This is amenable for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is pretty short, but the next chapter just needed to be longer to fit everything in the right way. So I figured I would post it tonight so that you get two chapters in one weekend to make up for the lack of length in this one. 
> 
> I appreciate you all and your continued kind words and support. I hope you continue to enjoy this journey that our boys are on. 
> 
> Love Always, Jacks


	14. A Mending of a Broken Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Booklover99, she reminded me that I needed to fit in the Weasley chapter. Then I wrote it...
> 
> When once I was but a bleak soul adrift in the void of life, you were there watching me. And when I survived the cold and dark abyss, you were there waiting. When I came up for air, you were there to welcome me.

CH. 14

The side along wasn’t nearly as bad as he expected it to be, he was used to having to traipse about with victims of the dark lord during his reign and he knew the odd feeling of mixing one’s life essence with another during travel. It was the firm hold on to his mid-torso from the side that put him off. Not that he’d tell a soul, but he found it very nearly impossible to breathe. 

The expected feeling of nausea at being touched so intimately, never came to fruition, and it was that more than anything that caused the bright white light of epiphany to blind him for a moment. He wanted Potter, and in a way that it appeared his body already approved of, as if past trauma was already forgotten physically. Upon releasing the man in the lavender field outside the wards of the burrow, he waited a beat before rubbing his hand along the echo of warmth where another hand had lain on the lower half of his ribs and he felt the sheer desire hit him like a wave of longing he’d not felt in nearly half his life. 

He relaxed into the smell of calming purple foliage and took a moment to connect dots that he’d been unaware he’d been collecting. 

“Are you going to be ok, Severus?”

“Yes, it’s just been a moment since I’d been here. The last time wasn’t a pleasant memory.” 

“You are talking about the night that we were ambushed in the clouds getting me here?” 

“No, there was one more night that I was here. A night you were not present for. I do not wish to relive it just now.” 

He watched the concern sweep through the eyes of his apprentice before it was hidden away. “Of course. You do not have to stay if it would be too much for you to handle. I can explain it to Molly. Of all the people with the capacity to understand burdens of trauma left over from the war, it would be them.”

He looked on fondly at the rolling hills and fields and the faint memories of a lighter time rolled through him. He had moved on, and forced himself to move past the pain and the fear, in most other aspects of his life, why would or should this place or these people be any different? He took a deep breath, “I am fine. What better opportunity to make new and better memories, correct?”

The flash of a smile, showered him with what he was sure was glee. He dampened the return smile down to a smirk and swept past the other man in the clearing. He had to get a grip on his emotions if he was going to formulate a plan to win. He had an apprentice to train, and a man to woo, and he’d be damned if he was going to harm either of those by being a love sick fool. 

The moment they reached the wards and passed through, he could see the towering structure that was the Burrow. With its tortured parapets, held on with magic and sheer luck of architecture. He took in the wood and brick and stucco that built the home of one of the oldest magical families in the British isles. He smiled, and found he meant it. The home wasn’t beautiful, but there was something about it that was more than a simple place of dwelling or ancestry, it was for lack of all other words a home, something he’d only found later in life and he was glad to be able to see it for what it was now. 

The door swung open and several children ranging from what he’d assume was four to early teens ran out of the house. The screaming littered with ‘whoops’ and ‘ahhhhs’ as a snitch zoomed in and out of reach of hands that were grasping to catch it. He looked up and noted that Potter was smiling and with a nod to his companion, the raven haired apprentice ran off with a shouted “Hugo, you didn’t wait for me?”

He shook his head, never would he be able to grasp the desire to play with children, and moved through the front door in to the vibrant dwelling that could be nothing less than the happenings of generations of family. Dollies that littered the back of the sofa, quilts that were completed, semi-complete, or patterns that were laid out on the coffee table for new sweaters were just some of the facets of what he’d always imagined a home with a devoted mother and siblings would feel like. The clock on the mantle that showed the entire family and their location in time and space tolling this 1600 hour. 

He noted the face that appeared to continue to be aimed at “At Rest” and the echo of loss swept through him with a force he’d not been expecting. A life lost too young, an age for which he should have been planning more trouble and a business venture with his twin, instead he was in the midst of raging war and sacrificing his light to the cause. 

He moved to the kitchen following the sounds of pots and pans being bashed together in what he could only assume was the makings of a meal. He rather expected that this was how Potter was trained to cook and why he was so loud in the kitchen while doing such at the Snape Residence. 

Upon turning the corner he saw the shorter woman with frazzled hair and an apron that had seen many a better day. He could see the frenzied energy as she moved from platter to platter, cutting board being used for the magical knife that was slicing away at vegetables and the meat that was being tenderized with a metal mallet that was moving in swift downward hammers all on its own. 

He cleared his throat and waited for the woman to turn around. He felt the anticipation and fear well up in equal measure. It had been nearly a decade since he’d last seen this woman, not counting the trials. He wasn’t sure what to expect. 

With a swipe of her hand along the hem of her apron, he heard her say, “It’s about time you showed your face ‘round here.”

“You can’t have expected that I’d feel welcome.”

“I can too. You were never unwelcome here, Severus Snape. Not when you were a boy, not when you were a teen, and not when you were a youth seeking acceptance in things you didn’t understand.” He watched her turn around and place the towel that she’d been using to wipe her hands with on the counter. 

“You were always on our side. There were many a fight had in this household over you, but had you still walked in any of those times this would have been your shelter as much as it would have been for my children.” She walked toward him, and he was at a loss to move away from the wall he’d found stabilizing him. 

“You were found innocent and yet you still sought solitude. I could understand it, aye. Who wouldn’t want a little peace after all that war and pain. Aye, you’d be hard pressed to find a bit o’ peace ‘round here. But you’d have always been welcome. It’s’a bit on me and my lovely husband then, for not making that a sight more clear for you.” She put out her hands and waited patiently to see how he’d react. 

He felt the tug of desire to reach out and hold her outstretched hands and let the wave of longing sweep him up. For once in his life, he didn’t fight the feeling of want for a family. He took her hands in his and looked at them with barely veiled confusion. 

“You are, and have always been family. Never forget that Severus Tobias Snape.” He felt the pressure of her thumb as it moved gently across the back of his hand and he was helpless for the emotion that swept over him. The tears he’d not known were still within him tumbled out in the most undignified way and he finally sought her gaze. 

“How could you feel so? The blood that was on these hands. The pain that I caused, the things that I did… How could you feel comfort in my being here, being with your family?” 

“Because, my boy, you were never okay with the things that these hands did. If you were, these,” she took a hand away while leaving the other holding his, and swept a tear onto her thumb. “These would hardly still be here neigh on 10 years later. The pain that you felt, we felt with you. We might not have known the whole sordid story, and I blame a bit o’that on Albus. His secrets, isolated you. His desire to see the end of that dark evil man, nearly broke the soul that was still seekin’ love within you. But it didn’t. Look at you!” She patted his cheek and took another tentative step forward. 

“You are big stuff now! Training my Harry, and building a business. Two orders of Merlin! Not many ca’ say that, now ca’ they?” She smiled, and he felt the warmth cover him like a blanket fresh from the hang in the sun. “You are a brilliant, strong, wise man who lost sight for a moment and paid the price for nearly as long as you’d been alive. Let yourself be loved. You’ll find nothing but acceptance here.” 

He felt the weight of his world crush down on him, and the need buckled his spine as he bent forward and crashed into her shoulder. He, having not been a man of physical touch, didn’t do kinetic feeling well, but it was as if she knew exactly what he needed and held him close. The tears of more than 40 years fell freely from him onto the well-worn apron sleeve and with them, the residual pain that he’d been holding onto like a life line to remind him of his lack of worth, appeared to go with it. 

He couldn’t say how long they stood there just like that. The sounds of children playing outside, the tick tock of the clock on the mantle tolling away the time, but a door never opened and she never pushed him away. He slowly came to himself and felt the relief of a thousand abuses wash away with the smile she offered. 

“Welcome home, old friend.” 

“Have you a bathroom that I might…”

“Yes, of course, turn right ‘round and through the hall. Second door on the left down to the right and you’ll see it right there. I expect you to come back and help me with this pie. Harry’s told me that you’ve a taste for his breakfast treats and I’ve a hankerin’ for cranberry rhubarb pie.”

“Of course, Molly.” He turned and nearly fled the moment. Needing some sense of solitude if only for a fraction of a second to put himself together, what pieces there were left. 

~~**~~  
The evening continued and it was as if he’d never been gone for nearly 10 years. The moment he’d left the bathroom, a child of nearly Hogwarts age barreled past him and closed the door. Sighting “gotta go, sir!” as a reason for the shove. 

He found himself discussing the finer points of muggle machinery in chemical plants with Arthur as he sliced and mashed the rhubarb and cranberries for the pie. With nearly a half an hour to go for dinner to be on the table, he’d been tasked with searching out Harry and making sure he started winding down the children so they’d be ready to eat when the bell tolled meal time. 

He left the kitchen with trepidation as he’d not seen his young apprentice since they’d separated nearly two hours previous, and his entire world had already shifted nearly twice in the same day. He found Potter rummaging through the pockets of a toddler who was laughing manically as the others looked on from floating and non-floating brooms. “No, I know I saw it go in here…” he heard Potter say loudly in what appeared to be a pantomime of words as he continued to tickle the smaller boy. 

“Please, ‘Arry!” the giggles kept going and with it he watched as the Snitch glittered above and behind the duo that was in front of him. He noted that several of the other attendees had noted his presence but also noted the snitch and it appeared there was a debate on what to do. He lifted his eye brow and summoned the snitch. A feat that he knew a great many people didn’t know you could do, and then slowly lowered it into the back of the man’s sweater and noted the smiles of the children that were surrounding the duo on the ground. He motioned and above him a sign showed the dinner was in twenty minutes and they needed to be washed and ready and at the table in fifteen. But then turned and allowed them to ambush the unawares Potter who wailed with the injustice of it all. His smile was clear as day as he walked back to the house. 

~~**~~

Dinner was a large and disorderly affair. He couldn’t mind his eyes as the dining room that he’d seen when he’d been in the kitchen previously, that could have fit 10, now appeared to be able to fit the nearly 27 bodies that were there. He’d been placed across from Potter, and between George and Granger, pleased that it appeared Molly had positioned him for the least interference with the children, and provided him with a well of good conversation. 

He zoned out while the meal was served and heard the different conversations around the table, but brought himself back to the moment when he heard his name spill from Ronalds’ lips near him. “Professor Snape was the most terrifying of all the Professors to teach at Hogwarts, be lucky you lot don’t have him as your Professor.” 

It was said with a cheeky grin, but he couldn’t help but play along with the jab. “Oh, I was terrifying alright. But I do believe that the Pink Toad of your fifth year, might have been a sight more terrifying than I.” 

He nearly smiled at the gasp of recognition that hit several of Potters year mates and older. “You’re right! I am sorry to have assumed.” 

“Who is he talking about, Dad?” came the voice of a youngster that was a few seats down. 

“Aye, he’s referring to Umbridge. The most evil of all spinsters in the land. She would have used your hair for knitting and drank your blood for sport!” 

“Ronald!” 

“Sorry, mum…” 

The giggling took a moment to subside before the curiosity struck the younger generation again. “Why do you think that Mr. Snape was a scary Professor, Uncle Ron?” 

“He swooped everywhere he went! I was sure that he had little gnomes holding up his cloak every time that he moved down the hall. Chained beneath his every move. And his potions! So many explosions and moments of sheer terror that went on, just making his potions!” 

The laughs that followed allowed Severus in on the fact that this wasn’t a joke at his expense, but mostly he felt the need to add to the element. 

“Just because you were unable to ‘swoop’ as it were, young Ronald, does not mean that I was evil because I could. You are not talented in a great many ways, but I would hardly assume that what you are talented in, makes you any more terrifying…” 

The snicker from George and Potter made him feel good and he let the smirk stand. 

“Look Snape, you were scary and you can admit it here and now, you aimed at being scary!” 

“Ron, honey, you were scared of spiders. You’re not a good judge of what is and isn’t scary, babe.” He couldn’t help the guffaw that fell from his lips and the laugh that followed. He felt the look of shock that was aimed at him, but he was damn sure unable to hold in the joy at Granger having eviscerated her own husband, seemingly in his defense. 

The dinner wore on and he noted that Ronald appeared to have taken the whole thing in stride, but the conversation around him stayed a bit on topic. 

“You did have rather difficult potions. There were so many explosions in our classes.”

“Just because you were unable to do the potions, Potter, didn’t mean that they were difficult. You just didn’t pay attention.” 

“I paid attention!” He saw the smile but heard the affront. “You’ve seen that I can follow simple instructions. It is just that there are a far sight fewer distractions now.” 

“How is he doing with the potions aspect of it, Severus?” Arthur asked a bit down the table. 

“He’s…” He caught the eye of his apprentice and then looked down at Arthur and Molly. “He’s rather adept at them, to be quite honest. He takes copious notes, and he’s got a rather good insight on how we might adapt several potions into easier to produce or easier to obtain for rarer magical beings. Plus, I’ve recently been privileged enough to see the drawing that he uses for his note taking, and I have a plan to see that we might incorporate that into potions texts for younger students.” 

“Oh dear! Look at that, I knew that you’d do fine. Just needed to get past all the jitters of lessons and probably a little easier now without that madman on the loose.” Molly said, and smiled fondly at Potter. 

“Molly…” the blush rose up Potters neck and onto the cheeks and he found the site as alluring as he’d previously. 

The conversation continued through the meal and into dessert. He volunteered to help with dishes along with Potter and several of the teenaged children as the rest of the family went to the lounge or out to the back meadow. 

He soaped up the pans with a mixture of basil and lyme and washed them, handing them to Potter to dry. He heard the deep inhalation of breath and nearly chuckled. “I appreciate the acknowledgement. I started with drawing in class to help me focus. It would be tea cups when we were in transfiguration, the constellations in astronomy, the grim when Trelwany told me I was going to die,” Severus craned his neck and took in the laughing features of the man next to him, “Which was nearly every day for 6 years… I would draw plants and some of the items in jars that you had along the walls in your class, though it didn’t help because I was always distracted with something in your classes.” 

“Oh? Like what?” 

“What wasn’t taking my attention?” Potter followed this with a laugh. “I was sure you were a double agent bent on the destruction of Hogwarts and good common magical and muggle people. I kept a keen eye out for Malfoy or Parkinson who always found a way to distract or harm my potion or Neville’s. I had to avoid appearing as if I was listening to Ron drawl on about the ‘greasy dungeon bat’. Plus with hormones as they were, and you swooping about… it was difficult to-“ a pause followed quickly by a grunt. “It was just a lot going on.”

“I did not ‘swoop’.” Severus figured it was in both their best interests to allow the little slip of what he presumed was Potter nearly confessing to a teenage crush go, he wanted to build whatever it was that they were building and work on the other things later, as much as it went against the grain to take, devour, consume. He hated that he’d at some point in the last several months grown a moral code, that was opting to forgo nearly assured mutual attraction and sex, for a deeper base. But he was sure that if he did this, if he waited and bid his time well, that he would be able to have more than consensual and presumably outstanding intercourse. 

“You most assuredly swooped. You swooped, and twirled and careened. You were a force to behold all those years, and we both know that you know it!” the laugh was nearly infectious and he allowed a small smile to grace his lips in the shared moment. 

“If I swooped and the such it was because I was competent enough to learn the spells that allowed for me to be a ‘force’ as you attribute. This was for a purpose, as too many of the dunderheads that frequent that school, had nary a fiber of a brain let alone the entire thing. They needed to know and learn quickly who is in authority and who is not.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry- no one doubted your authority. You nearly scream dominance and power.” Another pause, “You always have.”

“Authority, dominance and power… thank you for the compliments, Potter.”

The blush was creeping up the cheeks again, and it was all he could do to not reach out and touch the heat that he knew would be radiating off the skin. “Is it a compliment if it is merely stating a fact?” He relished in the hint of a flirtatious tone.

“To state the fact in a tone such as you’ve done… implies a compliment. If it will help you, I can let you in on a fact about yourself.” 

He waited through the pause as he continued to soap up the dishes. 

“Sure. What is a fact about me?”

“You permeate the air around you with power, charm and an authority in your own right. You do it without losing that demure quality that makes you so desirable…” he paused for a moment to let the word settle between them, “As I am sure you are, for your peers.” With that he turned and walked from the kitchen leaving a stunned apprentice finishing the cleaning. 

~~**~~

He kept looking at his hands as they were covered in the sudsy residue of the soap in the sink and felt the flush rise up in his cheeks. Snape had just stated that he was desirable… and yes, he’d also added the bit about his peers, but he still had said it, and there hadn’t been any snide tone and he sounded like he may have meant it another way. 

He shook his head slightly and cleared the glazed look from his eyes, he continued cleaning. He was still a little sore from the previous week and he felt his joints ache in the way they do after a long cold night outdoors. The creak in every movement sending small jolts up and down the connecting bones and the headache he had wasn’t friendly either, but he was up and about and he felt like he was getting somewhere finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written with so much love. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> I have finished my move!!! I am broke, and I am still a ball of anxiety just looking for all the bad things to come crashing down, but this is a step in the right direction... thank you all for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy. < 3


	15. A Duel Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming to a common ground, might not be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible. Sharing ones knowledge should be a point of pride and should embolden the speaker and the listener to creating a whole new world.

Ch. 15

The knock on the door at 0700 the following Monday settled something that he hadn’t been aware was unsettled in his stomach. The previous couple of days had apparently done more for his anxiety where the man was concerned than he’d thought and he was unsure of the level and if it was more connected to the life before where he’d been constantly at the throat of worry and frustration at the child’s every move. 

He let the feeling of peace for the moment settle over his shoulders and turned at the moment the door opened and noted the tomes and papers and biros that came through before the man carrying the lot. 

“I have everything here… I figured maybe we could start with the blood replenisher but we could move to other potions that have spell components. I was thinking that there are whole aspects of healing that seem so singularly focused on the human physiology of magic that with a little thought we might expand on most common potions and move it to other magical folk and creatures.” 

He moved out of the way just in time for the whole myriad of papers to be dropped on the table, and held his mouth firmly shut as he watched the 4 meter table across the room come sailing across the floor to Potters other side where the man started organizing the information into smaller piles. Nary a spell, a wand, word or glance in the way of the table, just what appeared to be a thought and the magic connecting Potter to the world around him. 

“Right, so, I have set my notes up into three basic parts. One is adaption of basic elements into other formulations for travel or expense concerns. Two is adaption for the health and safety of those that are not of the human variation of magical being. Three is the alteration of base spells for potions that are already designed to make them more customizable for people that have lower or higher magical strength, which may help when dosing in emergent situations. Here, let me show you…”

Severus sat down in the plush chair and himself silently accio’d a biro and pad to himself. He was most assuredly intrigued and the very demeanor of the man in front of him was a sight to behold. He was sure that they were about to be on the cusp of something completely altering to magical society and that thought alone gave him a buzz in his ears that he’d scarcely had since the last time he created a spell for a potion in his early days after Hogwarts. 

Potter continued, “So we have several basic but extremely common “others”” he turned and focused on Severus for a moment, “I will be referring to the other magical beings as ‘others’ moving forward as a whole group, but understand that they are not an ‘other’ any more than we are an ‘other’ to the muggles.” He didn’t wait for a response, but noted that Snape nodded in response none-the-less, before he turned back around and summoned several shades of chalk to his hand and began writing half with magic and half with physical writing on the board across the length of the long wall. “Vampyres, Were-beings, and Elves are some of the most common of the “others” and yet we do not cater any of our potions to their healing or assistance and we have covered with some of our studies that this is a big deal as were-beings need mood altering potions for before, during and after their transformations. Vampyres may be able to utilize the blood replenisher when they are created, and elves have been known to catch the common muggle ailment that magical folk do not because they are often the branch between the two worlds and are often left to the elements between the both of them.” 

As the day went on Severus felt that he was learning more than he’d ever been able to teach, and he was so thoroughly impressed that he was scarcely able to keep it in. After only 10 minutes or so, he had gotten up himself, and had gone behind Potters writing and started adding his thoughts, fixes to some statements, and ideas or compounds that could be utilized for the base of some components. He’d seen Potter stop and look at him questioningly, “Keep going, I am just doing this so that we don’t have to cover this all again when we hit my part of responding…” Potter had nodded and the blinding smile that was sent his way was in its own way a reward. 

The afternoon came on them quickly and they didn’t think through just rushing down the stairs and getting some simple items to carry up to the lab, although Severus did make sure they kept the food sequestered to the side of the lab where the potions ingredients were not. They continued their conversation late into the evening and well into the early hours of the morning.

“…right, but you switch the base for the BR away from a thick liquid and into a powder or a solution we would be able to get it out to more magical beings with more security that the cost wouldn’t be ineffectual. Think about it, if all that is needed is the water then the were-beings might be able to keep a dose of the powder on them for extended lengths of time and would be able to just add water and go if they need to… much more convenient than the current form that expires after only 30 days.”

“You can’t just make a potion into a powder, you would have to completely change the entire chemical make-up of the potion all together and that isn’t wise.” 

“Alright, let’s say that we powderize all the parts of the potion, and then what is the liquid base for BR, Snape?” 

Potter picked up the chalk and created a new blackboard in the middle of the room that hung from the vines that Severus had used to tie him up during the first duel. 

“The liquid base is nearly always the same, water, but it has to be purified. There are some other bases that can be used but the outcome is almost always that it is nearly inedible.”

“… him, you are talking about vinegar in the olde versions, right?” 

“Correct, good job.”

“What about apple cider vinegar?”

He was silent for a moment, mulling over the differences between the chemical dynamics of both. “We would have to take out some of the other components that break down into sugar complexities.”

“That wouldn’t be entirely difficult, we are already talking about switching out the current aloe and adding hibiscus which would have nearly a nonexistent sugar base.” 

“Hmmm, you are not wrong.” 

He walked over to the newly summoned board and took the chalk from Potters hand, “if we did this, then the chemical make-up would look something like this” he wrote out the diagram of the bonds and the tetrahedrons. “Currently it looks a bit like this…” he drew the current chemical bonds and side by side he saw that there were only two places that the new formulation was weak. “We’d have to strengthen the bonds here…and here.”

“Alright, but you are still assuming that we are going to keep the base a liquid. What if we removed this part here, and then focused on the bonds being a powder formulation? Then the user would add the apple cider vinegar later on, and at that point the liquid base would be the bond strengthener.”

“That…” he paused and drew up what he was thinking, “That is brilliant!”

The night went on like this until Severus woke up in his arm chair with the dawn light filtering in the windows. The stiffness in his neck reminding him that he wasn’t the young man he once was when he had originally been assisting in creating and altering potions and spells. He moved to vacate the armchair when he noted the man that was laying on the ground in up against the wall. As if he’d sat down for a moment, and then fallen asleep himself, the papers and chalk and other deleterious were scattered around his sleeping frame. 

It could not have been comfortable, the position that the man was in, but he was asleep and Severus was loathe to wake him. He stood and held the grumble in for the pain that shot down his leg from his hip to his toes and summoned the blanket from the end of his bed and let it settle on the sleeping man, and the pillow that followed slid slowly under the resting head. 

He limped to his own chambers and fell onto his own duvet. He looked up at the long clock face that was against his own wall and noted that it was only a bit after 0600, he set his alarm for thirty minutes and closed his eyes. 

The alarm didn’t wake him but the gentle nudging did. 

“You, well… we have been asleep most of the day…” he noted Potters hair askew and the sleep that had barely left the other mans’ eyes, as he rolled over and moved up the bed to lean against the headboard. 

“What time is it? I did set my alarm.” 

“I am pretty sure that you must have had a fight when it went off…” Potters smile was the only consolation as he moved out of the line of sight of the alarm that was in shatters along the far wall. “It’s nearly midday, sir.” The chuckle that left the other mans’ mouth was as charming as it was annoying. 

“Go bathe and see about preparing something to eat if you want and we can go over some of what we went over last night. It’s… Wednesday and I might be able to set up the portkey for this evening to Paris and then possibly after gathering some ingredients there, I might be able to see about setting one up for Greece so we might test the theory you have about mermaids.” 

He fought off the bubbling in his chest at the blinding light of a smile that the other man aimed his way, “Yes, of course. I will put something together for the both of us, what say you, about an hour to decide you want to vacate your bed, shower, dress and be downstairs?” 

“Do I detect a bit of mockery in your tone? I can leave you here while I go to Paris and Greece, Potter.” 

“Of course not… me? Never…” the laugh that left the raven haired miscreant of a man, echoed the walls of his chambers long after the man crossed the threshold out. The warm feeling in his chest stayed even longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this chapter is short and super technical... but I really liked it and it needed to be it's own chapter so that the next one works. I am hoping to write a bit more this week so there isn't any shortages of chapters and I keep posting on time. But beware!! I am behind in school due to my move and my team at work is going live with a new client this month. So there might be a break of a Sunday soon... bear with me and keep motivating me. 
> 
> Love you all xoxo Jacks


	16. It's All in the Hand Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Learning how to move gently but with appropriate force, can be one of the hardest things to accomplish.

Ch 16 

After all he’d not been able to secure a Portkey by that evening, but had one that was set to be used the following morning. He tossed together a small satchel and check-listed all of his items in the house. Making sure that the wards were updated to notate any movement while he and Potter were gone. 

He mulled over the time when he had to disclose how long they’d need each key for, and he’d finally settled on two weeks total. They’d spend some time in Paris, some time in Greece. He packed logically as he always did and then decided at the last moment, to pack up the notes from their extended session on the blood replenisher. He had a feeling that the Librarian Master in the Greek Library of Magical Arts would be interested in the concepts that Potter had come up with and would possibly be able to guide them to some additional insights that they’d both find most intriguing. 

~~**~~

The day started rough, Harry’s left side stiff from a night of sleeping on the floor but he was over the moon about the entire shift in their working relationship, and from small signs, their personal relationship as well. He’d finally decided to share all his thoughts on potions and he couldn’t wait to open the conversation on spellwork. 

He’d been nearly bouncing off the walls of his garage as he tried to pack for the trip, he didn’t know how long they’d be in either place, but he hoped that they’d be in Paris long enough to visit the Louvre. He’d been wanting to go for years, but his training had always taken precedence, now that they’d be in Paris, he could only hope that he’d be able to sway… Severus into some moments of learning something other than magical elements. 

He packed mindlessly, only making sure that he packed some of the nicer clothing and then some things that he didn’t mind getting dirty if they were going to go cliff exploring in Greece. He’d been hoping to gather some information on the alchemical and magical makeup of mermaid scales, and this was going to be a great opportunity. Especially after the lesson he’d had back in training about the complex and dynamic way that magical folk needed to treat and entreat mermaids, he’d always felt that he’d love to converse with them. 

He'd been thirsty to learn about them, their history that was so often a mystery. He’d felt a certain kinship to their willful struggle against those who would consider them more important due to their status, ultimately causing a cataclysmic war between muggles, wizards and mermaids in 600BC that had resulted in Merlin sinking Atlantis for the protection of the mermaid folk. He wondered what type of healing they had, and their defense, and if they still could turn into humans at will or if that had evolved out of their genetics due to being in a city forever under the water… the questions were endless.

He threw the last bits of his clothing and paraphernalia into his bag, zipped it and then ran from the garage to the kitchen. He had only half an hour to get something together for them to eat before the discussed the trip and all they’d need to accomplish to make it worth it. 

~~**~~

“We aren’t going to be able to leave today, but that might work in our favor.” Severus said as he walked into the kitchen, noting the satchel that was thrown over the chair and Potter cooking with a frenetic energy that in any other person would cause him to be terribly angry, but somehow caused a fondness to well up within him. 

“We will be leaving for Paris in the morning. This will give us some time to discuss the finer points of the spell crafting that would go along with the new chemical base for the replenisher.” He moved to his tea kettle and noted that the tea was already steeping and nodded his pleasure. 

“Right, I understand.” There was no missing the slightly quelled tone of excitement.

Severus sat down as a biro and pad sailed his way from the satchel across the table. “I have some base lines worked out for the spell itself, but I am not comfortable with the complexity of the gestures as they currently are. If we are hoping that Were-being’s might be able to utilize this during a full moon cycle, we must try and refrain from a complex set of hand movements.”

“I completely agree…” he watched a black board appear, floating next to Potter at the cooktop, who had spoken not taking his attention from the meat cooking. “Let’s say that a baseline for the complexity regarding the hand movements should be equivalent to a 1st year. Assuming that mental regression occurs at the onslaught of bodily change, and taking into account that elves have never relied on hand gestures for spell casting as they have an inherent magic that will possibly cause them confusion, we should make it universally simple for all beings.” 

Snape watched as the 27 Common Hand Gestures for Spellcasting appeared on the blackboard. “Now, let’s assume that we need to take out anything with thumbs, because were-beings nearly universally lose their thumbs in their transition.” He watched as 11 hand gestures were crossed out with a red chalk mark… “We are left with 16 gestures that we can use.” He continued to watch in mild fascination and a hint of innate jealousy of Potters ease of using multiple forms of magic, when the man left the cooktop with the sausage still cooking, the spatula moving itself and the pan with the biscuits floating to the oven and placing itself to cook. “How about these gestures…?” And so Potter started the complex process of building a spell.

So their day went, with little more than a half mind on their eating and more focus spent on hand movements and the gestures that go with certain words, the Sign Language of Magical Dialogue (MDSL) and the difference in Gaelic, Latin and Greek spell casting and how it directly affected the hand movements utilized. 

“… right, but my hand can’t do that.” Potter said, his teeth gritting as he tried and failed yet again to mimic Severus’s hand movement. 

“You can, you are just thinking too hard.” 

“Here,” Severus moved to take Potters hands and stepped behind him so that they had each corresponding hand in the correct partner hand. He then brought Potters master fingers together with his palms out, curled the mans fingers down in a stiff but not complete fist. He then brought both of his little fingers straight up and the two palms together, making sure the palms and little finger tips met at the same time. Lastly, taking the small fingers and moving the master fingers from a curled position to a pointed and joint position. Using the force between the four connected fingers to cause his palms to concave, showing Potter the spark of yellow energy that welled between the near sphere that was left. “This is how you do it. Keep each movement stiff and clean, don’t focus too overmuch on the straightness of the fingers or the tightness of the touch of the palm. It’s more the movements that are drawing the magic from what you are saying into the world around you.” 

He felt the magic coursing up and down Potters arms, and knew that he should stand back and let his apprentice try the spell and casting on his own. But it wasn’t as if the man he was currently wrapped around was causing a fuss, and really it was a sight to behold. 

“So, you are saying that when this magical well is full of the yellow energy, I would then release the magic by opening the bottom of the palms and it would drop into the cauldron?” 

It was nearly impossible to miss the breathy weight of his voice or the slight hitch in the man’s hips as he tried to not lean into Severus’ touch. It was nearly his undoing. With an intake of breath and a closing of his eyes to focus on the issue at hand, he released the backs of his apprentice’s hands and moved to his cauldron to show him how it would work. 

“That is correct. You will allow the magic to fall, as close to the center of the cauldron as possible, for equal distribution. However, remember, for this version we are using a mortar and pestle, so we will have to come up either with a large pestle or a smaller casting.” 

He shut all the walls down and cordoned off the intimate thoughts that were threatening to derail his lesson, using the systematic movements of closing those thoughts off, to calm his raging blood. 

“Why don’t we just skip the last step, and let the magic well in the palms and then separate them from one another just as we bring them down on the pestle, so that the magic forms between the palms as they rest on either side of the stone? It would look a little like… wrapping cling-film over the top that would then sink into the pestle.” 

Severus thought it over, making to move his hands in the format that was being discussed and noted that his magic, though yellow, was more orange than Potters vibrant neon yellow, and pulled his palms apart as they cupped the pestle. The orange glow filling up the pestle and then settling and the powder they’d been using as a placebo lit a bright red before settling back to its white flour structure. “This could work, though we’d have to more than likely create a pamphlet as this is not standard magicks anymore.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult, can you do this again only a wee bit slower?” Potter asked as he whisked out his pad and coals and Severus watched as the other man deftly and expertly crafted his hands in each motion as he went through the steps several more times. Making sure to note where the hands met, when, and in what direction. 

“Once again you astound me with your talent, Potter.”

“I really try.” 

The coy smile hit him in the gut and he let the resulting smirk happen all its own. “Do you now?” He watched as the other man brought his attention back down to the pad and continued drawing, but the soft pink glow wasn’t lost. 

Another hour passed of them going through each step and making sure it was conveyed correctly before a buzz of the ward being passed went through Severus’ spine and the soft bell went through the room. He knew instantly that it was Granger and Weasley and expected it had to do with the outburst that Potter had expected of his bushy haired friend at the Burrow, but had not come to fruition. He could not reasonably drum up a sound excuse for Potters peers to not have an opportunity to speak freely with him, and sighed at the loss of their solitude. 

“It appears your peers are here. More than likely to check on the status of your health. Just this once I can clean in here, go, welcome them in. It’s nearly supper time anyway, we may possibly go down to a pub not too far from here to celebrate our work. Go!” he said, shooing a smiling man from his lab and moving to clean the debris of another session well spent in creation of something good. 

He felt that not only was he making way with his apprentice finally, he was making good on all that he’d done wrong in his life. So many dark sins and spells and potions he’d made under the tenure of a violent and evil psychopath, and he may well make up for it by working with magic for the light in a way that was purely to the benefit of the world. 

What better way to spite the memory of the man who ruined and nearly killed him?

~~**~~

The door swung wide open and the next thing he knew his face was full of hair and his arms full of a frantic body. “How dare you Harry James Potter! You knew you had those issues, and you should have informed Master Snape of them!” though the reprimand was sincere and stern, it was whispered in his ear as he wrapped his arms around his dear friend.

He looked up to see Ron, who though he wasn’t nearly as frantic, also looked just as peeved. “Don’t look at me to save you, mate. Was a blimey shite thing to do, learning that you’d been downed again by these mental aberrations. Knowing that we can’t save you from them and can only try an’ help ya through.” 

“I appreciate you not bringing this up in front of mum, saving it for interrupting my lessons was a much better way to go about the whole thing.” He could feel the smirk that rode up on his face, but the tone took on a thankful if slightly chagrined note. He and Snape had really been getting somewhere with the spell building. 

He looked up and noted the frustration that laced Ron’s face but also the worry that shadowed Hermione’s’. He had already come to understand the depth of just how poorly his decision had been to delay letting Snape know of his health concern. He’d been trying to save face in the midst of showing Snape that he’d become stronger, but in the meantime had not only failed in that regard, he’d also caused his friends to worry yet again for his life. 

He reached out still holding Hermione with one arm, to grasp his other friends hand and pull him close. “I’m alright. I promise. Was a bit hard there for a day, but all told and said it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time, and I think part of that was the anchor you guys helped make me. I kept feeling your magics in it every time the darkness would threaten to overwhelm me, and it felt like a soothing bath helping me soak the cold away.” 

He held them close until he heard the distant sound of foot falls on the stairs. “Come on, let’s head to the kitchen. We were just finishing the session anyway, and I can make us some tea while we chat and then Master Snape stated we might all go for a bite down at the pub.” He let go of his friends but felt Hermione’s firm grasp stay in his hand. “Oh! You’ll be impressed with the steps we’ve taken working on those ideas I had, ‘Mione!” 

He could see from the corner of his eye, the struggle that his friend had between continuing the onslaught of frustration at him and allowing the conversation to sway toward intellectual pursuits instead. It looked like the conversation for his ideas barely won out. 

“Oh, yes! How did you come up with the transportation and what did you end up deciding was a good base in place of water?” 

“Well, after a thorough testing of each base, we landed on Apple Cider Vinegar, but it was a near miss as we still can’t tell how readily accessible that component is going to be.” 

“Well if that’s the concern, you shouldn’t be too worried, all the elves know how to make it, as it was part of their training only but a couple of generations ago. I know you’ve gone and made waves freein’ ‘em and all ‘Mione, but the knowledge is still there, and with the elves that stayed for most of the families they’d been bonded to, it would make the garnering of this component easy and reliable.” Ron said, as he sat down and moved to wrap his arm around his wife’s chair. 

“That’s true, and I know that it isn’t what I originally thought, and I am happy that they’ve all had the option at least to have their contracts that were created in blood to be nullified, allowing them to open contracts based on merit instead. But anyway, continue…” She pulled a shrunken pad and biro out from her coat pocket and placed them on the table as Harry moved about the kitchen making tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh.... flirting!! I told you all this would be a slow burn........ haha hahaha... look I want this to happen just as much as you guys, but these boys keep derailing my plans for them every time I sit down and write. 
> 
> xoxo Jacks


	17. A Tingle of Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's often that which is outside two elements common safety net, that they find themselves either hell bent on failing, or succeeding in great measure.

Ch 17.

Paris was everything that he’d wished for it to be and more. He’d nearly hugged Severus when they’d made it to their hotel and the man had stated that they’d be staying in Paris for several days. The very thought that he’d be sharing a room with the man, even though it would be separate beds, was a bit overwhelming but he had steadfastly and resolutely pushed it aside. He’d be respectful and he’d aim for consistent tact, even if it killed him.

They’d gone first to Snape's supplier in a building off Boulevard Saint-Germaine after they’d settled their belongings in the hotel room. The portly man of nearly 70 had immediately been nothing that Harry had expected, and everything that Harry had hoped for. He was stern and had the mannerisms of a man that had been alive through many a man-made wizard and muggle war. He had softly rounded, red cheeks and fiercely blue eyes that nearly twinkled (much like another blue eyed wizard) when Snape had introduced him as his apprentice. He’d been informed about Snape during his mastery learning days, and as much as he’d tried not to seem interested, he knew that Snape had caught him several times asking Master Ludon de Aremonde questions about Snape when he’d been apprenticing. 

“… always up to something, this one was. A fine young man, it was hard trying to keep him on task.” Master Aremonde said, his eyes alight with laughter. 

“Really? Why is that Master Aremonde?” Harry asked, sending a furtive sideways glance at Snape who looked disgruntled but unsure of where the conversation was going.

“Oh, he was a beautiful boy. Such long and soft hair, and his pale skin made for him to be an excellent delicacy for the young men in the neighborhood when he was under my tutelage.”

Harry sputtered, and nearly dropped his tea cup. “You, you mean that…” he turned and saw the look of utter shock and blotched red face of his Master. “You had affairs while you were training for your Mastery? You had… love affairs… while training… in Paris… in your teens?” Harry could feel his smile, and the laughter that was bubbling up. How so very unlike what he’d expected of his once hated Professor who’d always been surely and a rule keeper. 

“I can assure you, I did nothing of the sort.” 

A laugh sounded from Master Aremonde, that felt to Harry like it came up from the very stomach of the man, “For this is true. Severus was always focused on his Mastery, but he caused a spectacle everywhere we went. He was a beautiful specimen of British talent and refined features. He caught many an eye of prospective suiters that would have gone far to woo him.” 

Harry sat back and let his laugh fall out. That sounded more like the man that he’d reconciled in his mind. 

“Do stop exaggerating my youthful looks Are’… you’d do well to not undermine me in front of my apprentice.” 

“Sev’, my darling little Potioneer. You have always been so serious. Those crow’s feet that used to walk up the sides of your eyes, they are no longer there mon cheri…”

“Some of us grew up…”

“Tis a shame,” Master Aremonde turned his attention to Harry who still had a smile tugging at his lips. “You will teach him to smile again, beau garcon…, oui?”

“I will certainly do my best, I’d love to see more of these crow’s feet you speak so fondly of.” He said before he could stop himself. It was as if Master Aremonde’s freedom regarding Severus and the comfort of speaking about his youthful looks at lulled him into a loose sense of security. He steadfastly kept looking at Aremonde. 

“C’est un bon garcon…” 

Harry sat back in his chair and kept quiet for the rest of the tea that was shared and let Snape and Aremonde argue in a mix of French and English, and mull over how much he rather wanted to see Severus smile more at him. 

They had easily set up a supply chain to get the aloe derivative that they’d been searching for, and Master Aremonde made sure that the first shipment would be for the morning after they first got back to Snapes home. After that the rest of the trip was up to them and what they wished to do with it. It took all of Harry’s meager manners to wait until after they’d eaten to mention that he’d been hoping to see some of the sites. “I was wondering if you’d be alright with me taking some time to…,” he paused and tried to come up with a cultured way to speak, and finally just decided to be done with it. “Can we please take some time to see some of the sites? I completely understand if you are not interested or if you’ve other things you wish to accomplish instead. I could go alone and meet back up with you if you wanted…”

“So what you are saying is that you don’t want to see all that Paris has to offer, with me? But instead you’d rather see these sites on your own?”

He could see the smile softly outlining Snapes face but was still unsure of his footing, “Of course not! I would appreciate a guide in this city, and it appears that you know it well and may have seen all this city as to offer. I just didn’t want to be an imposition.”

“Potter, if I thought seeing Paris wasn’t on the agenda when we got here, I’d have only planned a day trip and we’d have been back at my home by this evening. Do, please, stop being foolish.”

He felt the blush rise up on his cheeks, and yet again damned which ever parent it was that made his face heat with each emotion, so easily. 

“Alright then, what is the plan?”

“Oh, so now I am to not only be the guide, but also take on planning the entire trip? What? Are you saying you’ve no aspirations to see anything in particular while we are here?” 

He felt his heart flutter a bit at the relaxed repose of his Master across the metal table. Snape had a charcoal grey, long sleeve button up that was rolled to the forearm and a pair of deep blue almost black slacks that were tantalizingly tight at the thigh due to the man’s right ankle resting on his left knee. He took in the figure that was leaning back against the metal chair backing, and couldn’t help the small smile that teased his mouth. Severus, free of burden, was a sight he wanted to witness again and again. 

He pretended to mull over the question, while also letting the light hearted banter rest on his heart. It felt remarkably like flirting, but he didn’t want to dwell on it too closely for fear that he’d over think it, and they’d lose this… thing, between them. 

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to notice, but I dabble in the arts a bit. I’m sure you’ve just happened to overlook it, while you are always so stately and self-aware…” he looked up and noted the smile that gleamed in Snapes eyes and the accompanying arched brow, and blithely continued. “But I was thinking that since we were here, and since there is this fascinating museum of art here… I don’t know if you have heard of it, it’s called the Louvre, very, important parmi les elites.” 

“Oh, I think that even I, the old stately and self-centered man that I am, might have heard of such a place during my expansive life living amidst the lower classes.” 

The laugh bubbled up within him and he couldn’t help but nearly tumble out of the metal wrought iron chair that he was sitting in, outside the tea shop. “Good, then you might possibly see it within yourself to waste a few hours mulling about the elites as I study something other than potions and spells?”

“I am sure it could be arranged, who knows, I might even find something enjoyable in the experience.”

“Well, I wouldn’t hold any hope, sir.” He let the laughter in his eyes twinkle as he caught Snapes own and held them. The moment was light and happy and it felt like something. The nerves bubbled up and with them, he took his smile and looked down at the tea and croissant that was in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is a SUPER SHORT chapter, but we had some fun imagery and some great flirting. I have officially and sadly caught up to where I have a gap in writing and with mid terms here and traveling next weekend - I wont be able to post for 2 weeks. Please don't hate me, and please do not give up on reading and being excited about my stories. I look forward to writing and posting next on Sunday Nov 4th. 
> 
> As always you are all amazing, and I appreciate you all so very much. <3


	18. A Work of Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes art is something that you take time out of your life to seek out, yet sometimes art happens and if you are lucky to witness it... you may find yourself mesmerized.

Ch 18. 

It was a dreamlike state that Harry found himself in the entirety of their tour of the Louvre. It had so happened that Snape had known an artiste who was able to get them a private tour after closing that lasted for 3 hours. Little had Harry known the treat that he was to be shown. Due to their magic, they had to do a swift cleansing so that their aura’s didn’t affect the carefully cultured patina on the frames and paintings. However, once that was achieved, they were able to roam the entire Museum with nearly unrestrained access to the pieces that normal tours could barely see through throngs of tourists and red barrier hangings. 

Artiste Desomonde Francios de Leon was a Italian Frenchman that Snape had met when he was in Hogwarts, a journey of the French Magic Academy of Arts to Hogwarts in the late 80’s had brought with them the gregarious man that was currently showing them around the stately and austerely silent inner canal-like hallways of the Louvre. 

“… as you can see here, the light capture in this 1200 B.C. work of art on stone is a brilliant expose on the magical folk that wondered freely so many millennia ago,” de Leon said, moving forward himself to take in the large slab of granite that had been chiseled in the workings of stick figures but the sun and the moon and the stars were all filled with ochre, kohl and wetted granulated marble. 

“Truly the depth of the incisions in the work are more telling than even the work itself.” Harry said, his notebook out, taking notes on the works that intrigued him. “If you look here, you can see that whatever tool they had been working with, must have broken.” He pointed to a small centimeter square that held shattered small indentions. “I would wager, that the original piece wasn’t going to have the entire night sky in it, but was going to be instead a study in the sun on the land…” he pointed to the cattle and the vineyard that was along the bottom of the etching. “And yet, if you look here, it appears that the tool shattered and due to it, the artiste was able to see in the broken stone below a constellation that looked remarkably like Scorpio. But if the age of the stone is correct and the locale also correct, this artiste wasn’t able to see Scorpio for a large swath of the year.” 

Harry stepped back and flipped through the pages of his notebook. Missing the intense look of intrigue sent his way be de Leon. 

“Aha! This is the Great Wizard Hamza. He was of what would now be the African tribes of the Morroco. He must have been the granter of the knowledge of the constellations and their star breakdown to the artiste during the creation of this piece.” Harry shut his notebook, and took a long last look at the large expanse of stone, before turning and walking down the path to the next section of artworks from the era of enlightenment, followed closely by de Leon their conversation continuing on the merits of expanding education for magical children in the schools. 

~~**~~

Severus counted himself a man of intense self-possessed understanding. He would readily admit that he was never one to have been inspired or intrigued overmuch by the arts. He found that there was a more judicious way to create what he truly felt was an art all its own and that was Potions. Where the outcome was a product that could do more than just look pretty. 

However, he also understood that art was a talent, and he’d known that Potter had possessed it in a degree that was slightly astonishing. What Severus hadn’t counted on was the knowledge that Potter had held so closely to himself about art and the entirety of the different histories, mediums, cultural implications, educational impacts and protracted understanding of the different elements of the magical and muggle sanctioned arts that many had deemed the normal more than several thousand years prior, put him in a new light that Severus had here – to – fore been unaware he hadn’t known existed. 

Potter was not a singularly exceptional specimen, and yet he was wholly and completely everything that Severus wanted in a partner. A well read, accomplished, wise, critically thinking, independent, talented magically powerful and attractive male. 

The compounding knowledge that Potter so completely encompassed all that he’d ever wanted in a partner was simultaneously beating his standard of self-possessed understanding. Here he was on the back foot, and he’d unwittingly ushered in a brilliant master of the sculpting arts and middle aged bronzed Italian maestro, Desomonde Francios de Leon. He’d known Desomonde for more years than he’d just about known any other living person on the planet. He’d always been a gregarious man, with a smile a mile wide and the body of a man who spent copious hours chiseling away at marble, quartz, granite and other materials with nary a whisper of magic. Instead sculpting a masterpiece first from the very bones of the material and then using magic to refine and add flourish after. 

He could see that Potter wasn’t enraptured in Desomonde, but that didn’t mean that Severus enjoyed watching Potter charm the man unwittingly and see the wheels turning in his friends head about the subtext of their relationship before moving forward with whatever he would deem appropriate.   
He chose instead to stay back and listen. Allowing himself to take in this new side of a man that he was finding was as interesting and engaging as a geode. So many facets and hidden glimmers of the light on the other side, and so much more digging to find them all. 

“… here she is, Oui!” he moved forward and took in the bright, blinding smile of Potter as he first laid eyes on the captivating Mona Lisa. Severus himself had stood here nearly twenty years ago, and saw the beautiful woman the first time. Marveling then at the way she seemed both timeless and ancient. Her master painter bringing her to life in a way that was both larger than life and smaller than you’d ever really imagined her to be. 

“She is so small!!” He heard Potter exclaim and quickly hid his resulting smile behind his hand as he moved behind the man. 

“She is, much like the history texts suggest, she seemed as if she was painted on a large canvas, the whole world able to see her with but a glimpse. But in real life, she is small but no less provocative.” He said, sparing her a glance while looking at Potter. 

“She seems so alive and wise. As if di Vinci wanted her to be an oracle for the masses. It seems so wholly unfair that of all the di Vinci pieces that are littering the walls of Hogwarts, moving and speaking and breathing in their animated ways, that he chose her to be silent and still for the masses.” 

“…Oui, it has been a topic of conversations for years, Monsieur Potter. How could it be that the Master Painter and with such great magical talent would choose some of his greatest masterpieces be silent.” de Leon said, moving on to the next room having already spent many years studying the greats, not seeming so enraptured like the younger man who was seeing them for the first time. 

“I wonder…” Severus watched on as Potter moved his hand forward, bringing his master finger and this ring finger in entwinned and his thumb up touching them. Before their very eyes, the beacon goddess of centuries past winked at them and her smile grew. Severus looked on but that was all she did, before settling back into her normal settee.

“What did you just do?”

“She had some residual magic from di Vinci. It’s something that I learned when I first took some magical painting apprenticeship classes several years back. All magical people that paint will invariably leave a trace of their magic. It isn’t intentional, but it is there. Most paintings in some capacity, if painted by or even near a magical person for long periods of time will encapsulate a small idiosyncrasy that will mimic their master. It appears then, that di Vinci liked to wink at the beauty that was giving him the muse for this work of art.”

“You continue, nearly every day, to astound and astonish me Mr. Potter.” 

“I am just being myself. If you choose to be astonished, then by all means, let me know what it is that does it for you, and I will make sure to do it so often that my normal state of being no longer shocks you.” 

Severus looked at the man and noted not only the sass in the tone and comment, but the wink that was bestowed upon him before Potter walked in the direction of their tour guide. 

~~**~~  
The night sky was black and streaked with rays of lights bouncing off the clouds that littered the starry night. They walked down Champs in hopes that even with the lateness of the hour, they’d be able to spirit away some form of food before retiring for the evening. 

“Did you see the Michelangelo piece that took up nearly that entire wall in there, Severus! You can only imagine what that would have taken a mortal to do. And to think that even he, with all that magical talent still took nearly 12 years to complete it!” 

“Of course, I tend to think that Michelangelo was a man before his time. The color that he used, the depth and voracity of tone and texture surely would have given him away for what he was, if there was a painting alive now that created such masterpieces and tried to sell them to the adoring muggle public.” 

“Oh, but there are, they are just using different platforms now. It’s no long the inner ceilings of cathedrals and domed entrances of the Vatican – now it’s murals on the sides of buildings that are hundreds of meters tall, and what muggles like to refer to as 3 dimensional art.” 

“You speak as if you are aware of a mass of magical people that are still intrenched in the arts.” 

“We are, Severus. I mean, if I hadn’t felt so compelled to get my DADA and possible Potions Mastery I would have become an artist. As it is, I do plan on still creating and being a part of that community regardless of where I inevitably settle down.”

“Hmmm…” Severus kept his eyes forward, but contemplated a life shared with a man of many talents and a desire to taste them all. He could admit that he rather liked the idea of a lover that continued to learn and adapt and create. 

“Aha,” he said, before letting his thoughts continue even farther down a path where he’d yet begun walking. “There is a baguette shop up here and down the alley. They should be open at this hour and we might be able to get sandwiches before retiring to our room for the evening.”

“Fantastic! I am famished, and I still really want to sit down and sketch some things tonight before going to sleep.”

“Hmmm…” was all Severus could muster. He really was starting to wonder how long it would be, before he started crumbling against his own self-imposed will, and would initiate his on method of courting. 

~~**~~

He took a step out of the claw foot bath tub, and gestured to clear the steam and fog from the bathroom and the mirror. He had decided on a long soak to take some time away from his apprentice, time to reflect on what he’d truly want, and what things he was willing to compromise now and what actions would require waiting. 

He combed his hair gently and used an ancient female magical charm to straighten his hair as he did so. Methodically combing the gentle waves into straight lines. As he contemplated what actions he wanted to take. 

He was fairly certain that his regard would be returned. Potter had done many things in the previous nearly 7 months that they’d been housed together, to instill a sense of desire. There were long looks, intense study of his person, notes that he’d seen in the man’s pads, small flirtatious comments, the incident with the tub after Howth…. Yes, he was sure that his regard would be welcomed. It was more, how does one move the dial to the next step in whatever this was. 

He had implicitly gone out of his way to not have the standard apprenticeship contract because he’d found them not only incredibly offensive but utterly dull. He’d never thought that a relationship with a ward was something that built strong networks and he also had never felt truly connected with any of his masters that he’d had that he’d been forced into the standard contract with. 

He summoned his floor length, pitch black, wool robe from the door before tying his hair into a bun higher up on his head and located his dark rimmed glasses. He didn’t see a visually appealing man in the mirror, but he knew that he was no longer repulsive. He closed his eyes, and made the mental note that if Potter had given any indication it was that his looks were not a detractor or a fault. 

He opened the door and noted that the large and well-lit room was still tidy, but that the man in question was not in the chambers. It took him nary a moment to note that the doors to the patio were open and a soft melody of violin music was whispering into the room. 

Severus strode over to the patio and took note of the red wine that was opened and airing out, the two glasses, the several candles and the sandwiches that they’d purchased were sitting out on the metal table. Potter was furiously sketching in a large pad, occasionally looking up at the night skyline of Paris. Severus found that he was enraptured not just of the man sitting there, drawing a nearly flawless artistic rendition of the scene before him, but the entire tableau itself. 

He’d never been a romantic man, or so he’d thought. But the twinkling lights of the Parisian skyline, basking their unrepentant glow on the man who was so taken with capturing them for safe keeping in pencil and kohl was nearly his undoing. He slipped forward and took a seat, pouring the wine and staying silent. 

He knew when art was being rendered, and he also knew when to appreciate art that was being unconsciously gifted to him in the form of life imitating it. 

He leaned back into the chair and let the peace of the evening sweep over him. 

This, this felt like the start of something different. Something new. Something exciting and echoing along his spine like tiny needles prickling his skin and reminding him he was alive. 

So he let their first day end, taking in the scene before him and wondering how he got so lucky as to be sharing a romantic night in Paris with Harry Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was able to update!! I very nearly didn't because I had a mental block, but I am ultimately happy with how this chapter turned out. Let me know what you think!! *rubs hands together* there is some stuff coming up for all of you that have held tight with this story since July!! 
> 
> As always, Thank you. 
> 
> Jacks

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!!! Comments and Kudos welcome. Also I don't have a beta, so any and all errors are mine. I try hard to catch them all, but I have many projects, a full time job, school, and a lingering disease that follows me everywhere I go. So please bear with me on any you catch. 
> 
> As always, xoxo Jacks


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